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COFXRIGUT DEPOSIT. 



OUTBOUND 

BY 

GOTTFRIED HULT 

"I 

AUTHOR OF 

REVERIES AND OTHER POEMS 




1920 

The Stratford Company 

Publishers 

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 






Copyright 1920 

The STRATFORD CO., Publishers 

Boston, Mass. 



The Alpine Press, Boston, Mass., U. S. A. 



g)CU604139 

«V I5IS20 

1 



3fn iMemoru of ilg Motl\n 



Contents 






Page 


Outbound ...... 


1 


Microcosm ...... 


2 


Starglade ..... 


4 


Caryatids ..... 


5 


"A Lover of Beauty He" 


6 


Delving ..... 


7 


''For a Little Season" . 


8 


''Behold This Dreamer Cometh" 


9 


Summum Bonum .... 


. 10 


Selfhood 


13 


Uncut Leaves ..... 


14 


Desert and River .... 


. 15 


"I Dreamed That Dream Was Quenched" 


16 


False Gods 


. 19 


"Back to the Hills" . 


20 


Genesis ...... 


. 22 


At Vesper ..... 


. 23 


Endless Quest ..... 


24 


Resignation ..... 


. 26 


De Profundis ...... 


27 



CONTENTS 






Page 


The Great Refusal . 


. 28 


Judgment .... 


. 51 


Good Friday . . . . 


. 52 


Sabbath ..... 


. 53 


Vita Brevis .... 


. 54 


At School .... 


. 55 


Electric Peak . . . . . 


. 59 


Love's Epiphany . . 


. 60 


Song ..... 


. 61 


Interim ..... 


. 62 


Tryst 


. 63 


''As Weds the Skimming Dove" 


. 64 


Aspiration .... 


. 65 


Plighted . . . . : 


. 66 


"As Grows an Isle" . 


. 68 


Holy Matrimony 


. 69 


The Brook .... 


. 70 


My Daughter .... 


. 72 


To Father at Eighty . 


. 73 


Ad Matrem .... 


. 74 


Condolence .... 


. 75 


Acknowledgment 


. 76 


Calamus ...... 


. 77 


To A. W. G 


. 78 


Exodus ..... 


. 79 



CONTENTS 






Page 


Coincidence .... 


. 80 


Recognition 




. 81 


Founders ' Day 




. 86 


''Mothering" . 




. 93 


Valedictory 




. 95 


Progress . 




. 96 


Ambition 




. 98 


''A Blur of Buildings" 




. 99 


*'In My Father's House" 




. 104 


Out-of-Doors . 




. 105 


Adolescence 




. 106 


Lake Louise . 




. 107 


The Kingbird . . . 




. 108 


A Threnody . 




. 109 


A Mountain Sunrise 




. 110 


Presence .... 




. Ill 


''I Am". 




. 114 


Penelope .... 




. 115 


Night 




. 116 


''In the Cool of the Day" 




. 117 


The Hills 




. 119 


Essence .... 




. 120 


"When the Waves Slip Back" . 


. 127 


Song of Unrest 


• • 


. 128 



CONTENTS 






Page 


*' Times Be When Life Seems Aimless and 


Uncouth" 


. 130 


Moods 


. 131 


Surf 


. 132 


Cause and Effect .... 


. 134 


En Route ..... 


. 135 


Kelp 


. 136 


The Melting Pot ... . 


. 145 


Democracy .... 


. 146 


Advent ..... 


. 154 


Gestant ..... 


. 155 


In Campo Dei Fiori 


. 156 


The Tragic Muse . 


. 159 


April 23 


. 160 


' ' And All the Gods Were Gazing on 1 


^hem" 161 


If 


. 162 


Illusion ..... 


. 163 


Winter Mist .... 


. 164 



Outbound 

A FRAUGHT ship backs from her pier, 
Midst a flutter of farewell hands : 
And who can think her voyage begun 
For transoceanic lands ? 

Thus Song unmoored from the heart: 
And who divines of her goal, 
As she swings into open seas of Time, 
And far horizons of Soul? 



[1] 



OUTBOUND 



Mi 



icrocosm 



Where flits the seedling soul, who knoweth, 

Of worlds to be ? 
Still whitherso it listeth bloweth 

The Spirit free. 

A flake the winter welkin moulted 

In passing o'er; 
A film of moss where seas revolted 

Against the shore ; 

A fern or fledgling in the forest, 

Or mother bird: 
Doubt not wherever need was sorest, 

Each ministered. 

In least as in the greatest, seething 

What potencies ! 
Perished infinitudes bequeathing 

Not more than these. 

[2] 



MICROCOSM 

The earth-ship hath aboard her oceans 

And sails the sky: 
I, freighted with as deep emotions, 

Sail heavens as high. 



[3] 



OUTBOUND 



Starglade 

Soft astral shimmer on the spirit deep, 
Glinting my dreams a path wherein to sail, 

Glinting my oaring thoughts the course they 
keep 
Along the silken trail. 

star, scarce visible in enmurking mist, 
From out what loam of dark, the single flower, 

Distilling like a perfume on the whist 
Sea of a midnight hour ! 

Only a faintest echo of the sun, 

Or hint of full moon's flooding, yet through 
thee 
How distant I from shores of self, upon 

The still and wistful sea ! 



[4] 



CARYATIDS 



Caryatids 

Perpetual caryatids, these, of Song: 
Beauty, that fashions from a little clay 
The rose, and ushers dawn out of the gray 
Before the Sun, swift for his course and strong ; 
And Love, heaven's compensation for the wrong 
Of birth to one who, spirit, fain would stay 
With Spirit, yet unsphered must tread the way 
Of human years, meandering and long. 
A caravan of ships on desert seas, 
We sail the moonglade. Beauty; and afar 
Uprisen, guides us Love, a changeless star. 
Oh, when all lips are silent, chanting these. 
Nor lingering echo of their praise shall be. 
Time's outposts have o'erpassed eternity! 



[5] 



OUTBOUND 



"A Lover of Beauty He** 

' ' What can we know of Him Who, knowing all, 

Himself is known of none !"...! mused, and 
back 
From revery summoned thought, the rise and fall 

Of ocean surf before me. There all black, 
The perfect rondure of a far-off wave 

Upclomb out of the clasp of tide at full, — 
Hung poised, and shoreward thunderously drave : 

And all the sea behind was carddd wool. 
Then culling from that fleece of foam a shell, — 

So irised and so fashioned by the main. 
It seemed like something wondrous that befell, 

What time a heart of its own dream was fain, — 
Quickly I spake : ' ' Whatever else may be, 

Yet know we this : a Lover of Beauty, He ! " 



[6] 



DELVING 



Delving 

Delving, delving, with sweat of brow ! 

Alas for isthmus delvers who bow 

'Neath lives of drudging, nor glimpse in these 

The interlinking of seas ! 

Delving, delving, with sweat of brain ! 
Alas for isthmus delvers who strain, 
Of Goal unwitting m what is done: 
Truth oceanic made One ! 



rn 



OUTBOUND 



**For a Little Season** 

For a little season, upon a time, 

There soared and sang a bird in the blue: 
Autumn might come but now 'twas prime, 

And prime must be caroled, was all it knew. 

Swamp and meadow-land, mountain and moor,- 
All the world but a vision for Song ! 

Molten snows but new livery sure 

Of leaf and blossom — ere long ! ere long ! . , 

Idled a hunter by — espied 

That Bliss aloft in its airy reels: 

' ' Be loam for battening weeds to hide ; 
Be clay to bake into ruts for wheels ! ' ' 

Spake, — and the arrow aimed let fly. 
And loitered onward with careless tread: 

Alone and silent, the endless Sky 
Gazed adown on the Singer dead. . . . 



[8] 



'BEHOLD THIS DBEAMER COMETH" 



"Behold This Dreamer Cometh" 

Cometh the Dreamer ! Afar off, lo ! 
Treading pensive . . . 'tis he, we know. 

Ay, with his multicolor coat on, — 

One, forsooth, for our Father to dote on ! 

He dreameth dreams of obsequious sheaves. 
Whose homage, upright his sheaf receives; 

Rehearseth us, too, by day all complacent. 
Of sun and moon and eleven stars obeisant. 

Who saith to rend him not limb from limb ?- 
Into the pit with him ! . . . 



[9] 



OUTBOUND 



Summum Bonum 

There stands a pine4ree amid northern winters, 
Casting a shadow upon endless snow, 

Long nights, or wrestling with the storm that 
splinters. 
And strews its tortuous path with overthrow. 

Reared on a mountain side that climbs to bleak- 
ness, 

Branching, it fain would consummate a crown ; 
Yet, lest in moments it forget its weakness. 

The avalanche around it thunders down. 

Cloud caravans that come out of the spaces. 
Burning with sunset desert-like at eve, 

Over it linger as o'er an oasis. 

And mists that pasture for a while and leave. 

Thus day succeeding day, and season, season. 
Beneath the gray, beneath the dark of sky, 

Awed, it doth ask itself its being's reason — 
Whence sprung out of the vasty All, and why. 

[10] 



SUMMUM BONUM 



''Stood I but where, less mute, the heavens 
responded, 

Circled me beauty as the sea, an isle, 
I might be yielding fruit as palm-tree fronded, 

Which watereth the intermittent Nile. 

''Environed by a tenderness of bosom 

And eyes like that wherewith the Southland 
teems, 
My life, even here, would have been song and 
blossom. 
Nor stood, the eremite of its own dreams. "... 

Becoming thus articulate in its sighing, 
One night with the hush universe alone. 

Faintly from out of depths like cadence dying, 
A Voice it seemed to hear — perchance, its own : 

' ' Whatso the Power that wrought this f orestation 
Of earth with soul, — by whatsoever plan, 

Surely it wills that each one's consummation 
Of selfhood be the uttermost he can ; 

"That whoso rise, their branches interlinking, 
Withstanding so as grove the whirlwind wroth, 

Confederate be unto the end of sinking 

Roots deeper for a yet more stalwart growth; 

[11] 



OUTBOUND 

* * But he who stands withdrawn aloft and lonely, 
What days 'twixt birth and death shall inter- 
vene, 

May consecrate himself unto this only : 

To keep the nesting-place of Spirit green." 



[12] 



SELFHOOD 



Selfhood 

I LAY and lent a darkling cricket ear : 

One eeriest note out of its joys and griefs, 

The while an ocean, muffled yet anear, 

Thundered upon a thousand broken reefs. 



[13] 



OUTBOUND 



Uncut Leaves 

Often in volume loaned me, as I turn 

The pages, although glossed and underlined, 
Leaves that by chance were left uncut, I find, 

Leaves that, slit open, are like beds of fern — 

Come upon in some forest's heart — trees spurn 
The noon from by their branches intertwined ; 
Or like some mountain tarn, recessed behind 

Crags, and reflecting stars that o'er it burn. 
Delicate and elusive things, a nook 

Of uncut leaves may hold : shy lyric dreams. 

Meant not for gaze, hardly for glimpse of light ; 
Or sonnet, in that solitude of book, 

All shimmery and soft with astral gleams — 

Peered in upon by none save me and night. 



[14] 



DESERT AND RIVER 



Desert and River 

Unto its River spake the Desert: "Why 
Idly glassing the heavens meander by ? 
Be outpoured here whereso is thirst, and grow 
Thy mirrored heavens below." 

Unto the Desert spake its River : " Be 
Henceforth a Garden through this boon of me: 
Myself an empty channel, do thou teem 
With the surrendered Dream." 



[15] 



OUTBOUND 



*'I Dreamed That Dream Was Quenched" 

I dreamed that Dream was quenched, 

And my heart blenched 

At how the world emptied itself of joy. 

Of Spring, erewhile so fresh, — 

Spring with the heart of trysting maid and boy, 

The spirit flower seemed gone to seed in flesh. 

Of Summer, with her sheen 

At the meeting-place of heavenly and terrene, 

Evanished, too, the soul ! nor without it 

Was morning any longer exquisite. 

Forests, that are but seaweed of the sky, 

A stranded ooze did seem of space gone dry. 

There was no mystery in things, no spell 

Of bird-song in the air, no nacre on the shell. 

No lingering afterglows of twilight eves> 

Nor autumn's red apocalyptic leaves. 

Oped Revery a visionary page. 

Eose drearily the sun, as in a cage 

Some tawny bulk, once leonine, upheaves 

To be its living pendulum. The moon. 

Appearing moth-white from its cloud-cocoon, 

[16] 



I DREAMED THAT DREAM WAS QUENCHED 

Became the murky wraith of old eclipse. 

No more the sea was Sea, 

Fathomless, as to thought, eternity, 

In wonted might uphurled, 

But only the vast sepulchre of ships, 

Whose ghosts, at ebbing tide, 

Disbodied of incrusted wreckage, eyed 

Afar the stark, cold, and dismembered world. 

In that drear time, 

Man knew no longer youth or prime ; 

The newly-born seemed old incredibly. 

A delver within ruined hills for ore, 

Ten thousand years and more. 

Emerged into white noon, had been as he, — 

So shriveled up with night, so cursed with grime. 

More terror than befalls from Nature 's hand, 

At lancing of Volcano's pent-up ache, — 

More desolation than of fire and quake 

He wrought upon the land. 

For in the age's wake, 

Wonder and Song had ceased to be ; 

And battle-flags were rent for scullionry; 

And Love was plucked as theme from the world's 

tomes. 
His pauseless toil I saw 

[17] 



OUTBOUND 

Make brick with gathered straw : 

Kose bastions, wherein Life immured itself; 

Rose glutless vaults of pelf; 

And everywhere were palaces and domes, — 

But Joy was not, nor any hush for Awe. 

Still thought made feint to explore 

The universe for lore; 

But moulted was the very sense of truth, — 

Impossible save to miracle and youth ! 

Nor work was wrought but bore 

Evidence that the heart within was blind, — 

That impotent is the dream-widowed mind. 

Thus Man strained on and on 

From futile deed to futile deed and — died: 

And the air clarified 

Of smoke from kilns and mills; and presently 

Afar I seemed to see 

Earth and the planets, hollow-eyed and hagged, 

In horrible hellish dance, that never flagged. 

About the bubbling caldron of the sun. 



[18] 



FALSE GODS 



False Gods 

There be who scorn the true god, Heart, 

But kneel them down to Mind; 

Take Learning by the hand and leave 

Feeling her mate to find ; 

And there are feet so much in haste 

Love pants and falls behind. 

There be who make a whip of fact 

For scourging Truth away; 

Who buy and sell, making exchange 

Of Soul for things of clay : 

But hoarding is a thrift makes poor 

Ever with such as they. 

If drouth will age the lucid lake 
Into a fen of slime ; 
If deserts burn where liquid seas 
Ran blue in earth's dim prime — 
God pity hearts whose love hath died 
Beneath unpitying Time ! 



[19] 



OUTBOUND 



•*Back to the Hills'* 

In moments when I rent the robe I wore, 
And, naked of illusion, shook with chills, 

Suddenly have I heard it o 'er and o 'er : 
Back to the hills, soul, back to the hills ! 

The plain I trod being littered with dead hopes, 
The valley, too, a cup the winter fills, 

Then wafted me like warmth from pine-green 
slopes : 
Back to the hills, soul, back to the hills ! 

Never so care-beset the heart in me. 

Never so matted o'er and choked with ills, 

But the same still small Voice came pleadingly : 
Back to the hills, soul, back to the hills ! 

Yea, when I doubted Man, not merely men. 
Spat upon Fame, and wished me with the wills 

And hopes and dreams of Time extinct — even 
then: 
Back to the hills, O soul, back to the hills ! 

[20] 



''BACK TO THE HILLS" 

Everywhere, everywhen, in teen and strain, 
Iterant in my heart like singing rills! — 

Death calling me, will it not come again : 
Back to the hills, soul, back to the hills ? . 



[21] 



OUTBOUND 



Licnesis 

My life seems but an inchoate mass of years, 
Groping through an eternity of space, 
Having its future orbit still to trace 
Somewhere and somehow in the realm of spheres. 
No beacon of its destined glory cheers, 
Nor hints a first faint glimmering of grace 
The slow transfiguration to take place 
Ere Love, its new-created Lord, appears. 
Give it to pass through any strain and stress 
Of fire and earthquake needed to perfect ; 
Sculpture with flood, to winnowing storm sub- 
ject ; 
Brood 'er the welter with Thy consciousness ; 
Give it Thine own perfection to reflect, 
God, Thou world-builder and star-architect ! 



[22] 



AT VESPER 



At Vesper 

I SAID : ' ' Since out of travail come no yields 
Commensurate with the ceaseless strain and 

stress, 
Why not forego the more, accept the less? 
I will eschew being as one who wields 
Power, and live emulous of him who shields 
His sunward eyes from noonday light's excess — 
Content myself with bovine placidness, 
One of the human herd at graze in fields." 
Then smote upon my ear this Voice: ''0 gross 
Of spirit, whimpering thus for meed denied! 
Knowest not perfect service, guerdon mars? 
To unfulfilment Faith her being owes ; 
Anhungered, Aspiration doth abide : 
Thereby is the longevity of stars." . . , 



[23] 



OUTBOUND 



Endless Quest 

Something I seek, never found — 

A bourne of longing, a bound 

Of hope ; something beyond the gale 

That says : ' ' I am haven : furl sail ! ' ' 

Something that whispers : ' ' Peace ! 

I am surcease 

Of the strife — 

Life." . . . 

In vain! in vain! 

I cannot attain 

Goal — quest, grope, strain, as I may 

Alway! . . . 

I paused in a market thoroughfare, 

With its traffic and trade ceasing ne'er — 

Eyed wares in a booth: 

Printed pages were there to sell, not Truth. 

It flew over my head, a bird. 

Limed never with speech, caged never in word. 

I paused before fields: like a fleet 

Of clouds in sunset, the wheat ; 

[24] 



ENDLESS QUEST 

And I looked for Pleasure, root-anchored too: 

Past me on powdery wings it flew, 

A butterfly soft, 

Fluttering hither and yon and aloft. 

By night I canoed a stream. 

Sown with the constellations therein agleam; 

And I looked for Love as the central star: 

It was afar, afar, 

In a spirit blue. 

Not in the mirrored Milky Way splashed 

through. . . . 
Quest, ever ! 
Attainment — never ! 

So I, drawing breath; 
So too, haply, in death. 



[25] 



OUTBOUND 



Resignation 

Close the door on the Hope that would win 
Entrance from blackness and storm without; 

Though the heart to the core grow dry within 
As mummied pod after summer's drought. 

Close the door, then hie thee to bed 

To flood thee with sleep as a shore with tide ; 
Nor yield unto filmiest dream, lest the tread 

Without through the long long night abide. . . . 



[26] 



DE PROFUNDIS 



De Profundis 

Impotent as one sick upon his bed, 
Between the intervals of fever throes, 
"Who hears a soft hand knock without, and knows 
That he must leave the door unopened ; 
And trying to muster feeble breath instead. 
Sinks back aswoon — ah me ! even in such wise 
All impotent at hearkened knock to arise, — 
And have I swooned at Christ 's retreating tread ? 
Whatso the hours or moments lush with sin 
Bring forth of after-agony, with mute 
White lips we needs must bow and kiss the rod ; 
But where we cannot do or fail to win. 
Weighed down in weakness as a bough 'neath 

fruit — 
The rain of Thy sweet pity and grace. Lord God ! 



[27] 



OUTBOUND 



The Great Refusal 

"L^omhra di colui 
Che fece per viltate il gran rifiuto.'' 

Dante 

I 

In vain, I tell thee, leech, thy cunning tries 
To outwit Death. My moon has known its full, 
Nor quails before eclipse. Thy charmed herbs 
Are powerless to restore this waning life. 
Nay, bid me not be silent: I who felt 
This hand too weak to raise and intercept 
A beetle, had it headed for my face; 
Who swooned into such mimicry of death, 
It even deceived thyself — I kenned the voice. 
Was whispering of embalmment when I awoke — 
Am strong to speak, must speak, ay, though I 

knew 
To hold my peace were to postpone the shroud ! 

II 

Mute have I lain here, mute, these days and 
nights, 

[28] 



THE GREAT REFUSAL 

And would have gagged delirium itself 

And throttled madness, lest they babbled forth 

Thoughts I would mate with silence. My doomed 

soul 
Plunged on amid a sea that clave to it, 
Clamorous for jetsam. Why then these my words, 
This late surrender to demands of fate? 
1 know not by what mystic law the heart, 
That yields to no brute enginery of force, 
Yet opens at the summons of a waft 
Of vernal air, the momentary gold 
Of dawn, or twilight tinklings of the flock. 
What dungeons catapults could not have budged. 
Angels have whispered open. Hence I speak. 
This morning through the casement stole a breeze, 
The softness of whose touch gave evidence 
That it had fanned the fig-tree, laved the vine. 
Over my brow it shed a summer's fragrance: 
I grew aware it was the Paschal Month, 
And all my being began to undulate 
Like wind-thrilled flame ; from out this smolder- 
ing life. 
Thus breathed upon, jetted forth sudden fire, 
That lit up all my past, my murky past. 
The Chosen People entire I saw in dream. 
How parceled out in caravans they converge 

[29] 



OUTBOUND 

To brim Jerusalem, the Sacred City ; 

And, bedfast, I was journeying forth in thought 

To wind among the hills and vales b}^ da}^ 

At night to camp beneath Judean stars, 

To climb with song Mount Olivet, to descend 

And stand within the presence of Jehovah. . . . 

I burned at seeing upon the Temple still 

The Roman eagle, oft fatally plucked down 

By Jewish frenzy. Yet not haughty Rome's 

Oppression, nor my own exclusion from 

The Feast, did mingle bitterness with morn. 

The bitterness ineffable I felt. 

Till Hezekiah-like, but willing to die, 

I turned my face toward the wall and wept. . . . 

Ill 

Have patience with my weakness. Grant me still 
Some moments' truancy from drug and drowse. 
And thou shalt glimpse the past I now behold,^— 
That red volcanic past. Its memories 
Torment a dying bed, and yet it cleanses 
To meditate a great soul's tragic end, — 
His soul, which by its very end perdures. 
How dowered with new interpretative sight 
Become the breaking eyes! how consciousness, 
Already irised for the bursting, holds 

[30] 



THE GREAT REFUSAL 

Film-mirrored all the skies of bygone life, 
And planet years, arisen like fixed stars ! 

God, thou Abraham's God, how blind was I 
To interlace my hands about the gold 

Not meant for chaffer chink, but stuff for the 

ring, 
Had married me unto eternal life! 
For if life's more than power to heave one's 

breath. 
Than something seed, nine moons enwombed, 

comes by, 
Than even aught sucked in with mother 's milk, 
Or what, toil-worn, meat, drink, and sleep renew, 
Then long ago I perished. Man, I tell thee, 
Albeit not livid-lipped, a thing embalmed. 
May yet be dead ; still alien to the tomb, 
So dead, Damascus steel could run him through. 
And he would bleed not. Look upon me, look I 

1 was not still-born; sweet maternal lips 
Anguished not white with such a mocker}'. 
That birth-hour : swaddling clothes that wrapped 

me, wrapped 
Infinite possibilities of passion, 
And hopes as beautiful as ever promised 
God usury on his loan of time and space. 
It was not cerecloth that enwrapped my youth, 

[31] 



OUTBOUND 

But broideries fine like favored Joseph's coat 
Of many colors, — hiding, too, a breast 
Not less athrob. With what a thrill my feet 
First trod, uiisandaled, sacred temple ground! 
How gleams that flashed from Roman shields 

and glaives 
Smote to the quick ! and great that moment 's awe, 
When poring over Sacred Roll I knew. 
Solemn and sage as the Great Sanhedrin, 
Eternal Duty, Righteousness, and Law ! . . . 
Such Vision makes one Hebrew. So time passed 
Apace. I entered on incipient manhood, 
A cypress like, not as it emblems death, 
But greenly spires, slender and sensitive 
To scurry of breezes. Thick as leaves my dreams 
Hoarded the warmth of those midsummer years ; 
And felt first love's infinite moonrise, tranced, 
Sylvanlj^ tranced: then knelt the world before 

me, 
Like some meek camel pleading thus relief 
From overburden of pearl and orient spice. 
What wonder if its driver, that rich moment, 
Recked not of leathern water-flasks, if filled. 
Or dangling flabby from the dumb beast's flank ! 
Who'd task me such forgetting when the heavens 
Were all mirage of oasis? . . . Such phase 

[32] 



THE GREAT REFUSAL 

Of sense-life passed ere youth, already prone 
To that world-seriousness wherewith our race 
Is dowered uniquely. Yet I could not scorn 
Beauty for holiness, in others' wise, 
Nor range me wholly on the side of Truth, 
There to do battle, wealth and power forsworn. 
The riches that were mine by heritage, 
I clung to but as means, fastidious 
In choice of ends thereby to be attained. 
Yet unrest waxed within me. Too clear-eyed 
To dupe my soul with vanities and dross,' — 
Cold to the lure of tinseled make-believes, 
I quailed at the fierce brevity of life, 
Rust and the moth. The chambered past out- 
grown 
Of individual being, soon I knew, 
Shuddering, a weird, wizard, other Past 
Upon me lay its spell. Lone sites of ruin, 
Long emptied of existence, the mind's ear 
Peopled with ghostly steps ; old rock-hewn tombs, 
With tenantry from some forgotten eld, 
And dateless, made me brood till bygone days 
Became the sole reality. Emerged, 
And back again, even in the city's flux, 
I stood as in a trance, and the mind's eye 
Sucked midnight out of noonday. By degrees 

[33] 



OUTBOUND 

All zest for action staled. What booted deeds 
Present achievements were but ultimate 
Futilities, and history the tale 
Of fearful disillusions. Why should I 
With toiling, ant-wise, vex myself for naught ? 
Thus, by its bath in endlessness, my soul, 
Diseased with leprosy of too much self. 
Strove to be purged, and only sickened more. 
AVhat wonder that my body sickened, too? 
Illness doth often wring the human mind 
Dry of illusions. The fierce fever-throe 
May even be hot enough to shrivel self, 
And wilt one's very religion into myth. 
Unconscious though one lie, the chemistry 
Of pain reacts upon one's consciousness 
As on a parchment roll to be erased 
For new and alien writ. 'Twas so with me. 
Intensively I saw — up from the bed — 
What I had only conned by rote before. 
Back in the synagogue I felt myself 
Mutinous 'gainst the elders who there Bit 
Lip-loyal to their Talmud lore. Meseemed 
Feasts, pilgrimages, sacrifices, tithes, 
Sabbaths and fasts, are dead observances 
To be sloughed off, lest true religion perish. 
Still blushed with bloody offering our altars, 

[34] 



THE GREAT REFUSAL 

And sputtering flames attested the old faith 
Did linger. Yet 'twas semblance, not the sub- 
stance,- — 
An empty mockery of soulless form. 
Better a Holy of Holies without fire, 
Arkless, of sacred furniture bereft. 
Than cherubim uninstinct with the Presence. 
Ay, better Dagon, so the scaly god 
Evoked from hearts the veritable Awe ! 
Thus Reason chafed within me 'gainst a faith 
No longer Faith, — nor there alone in doubt 
Questioned where once elate the heart believed. 
I had put by tenderly as dead love 
The apocalyptic ecstasy and dream, 
The poetry of Israelitish hope. 
Who quits a grave half filled, and turns him 

homeward, 
Beholds the world a strange new phantom world. 
Through eyes still wet with utterless farewells. 
' ' Must Judah perish, Judah, even Judah, 
How blank the world 's futurities of time ! ' ' 
Thus cried my heart within — and then anon: 
"If Rome be but Jehovah's winnowing flail, 
And we His Chosen Seed — but no, — but no — !" 
The lightning hissed its way through space, and 
earth, 

[35] 



OUTBOUND 

A moment preternaturally white, 

Reeled back into engulfing black once more. . . . 

IV 

Pillow me up. I've strength. My tale half told 
Grives me momentum for what's yet to tell. 
— A leech, thou dost recall how once the land 
Astonished at a prophet healer: he 
Held in the toils of wonder his own province. 
And captured all Judea's gaze at last. 
Where'er he came there was disease abolished; 
Who even brushed his mantle became whole, 
However broken; his mere whispered name 
Made sightless eyes to see, lame feet to run. 
His ministry put forth its noiseless might 
Among the obscure and lowly, yet his deeds 
Outmiracled the dreams of prophecy. 
Never such passion for another's weal 
Enrobed itself in Rabbi 's talith : mart, 
Hill, plain, where'er his shadow a moment fell, 
Knew an unwonted gentleness abroad. 
The hedge and highway where Levitic feet 
Disdained to tread, or trod to bruise and crush 
The chance-sown blossom that co-dwelt with 

weeds, 
Familiar grew with his mild eyes and welcomed 

[36] 



THE GREAT REFUSAL 

As friend his lofty imphylactered brow. 
Unpopulous the hamlets drowsed, the day 
He taught on shore or mount. The multitude 
Listening till eve felt sunset premature. 
Times were when they who found its noonday 

shade 
Delectable, and whom the very wealth 
Of intervening foliage made blind 
To the sun-anointed brow, august o'erhead. 
Murmured of crowning this already crowned 
Lebanon cedar. Were Galilean hills 
Speech-gifted, spake with tongue the Judean 

desert. 
In whose mute presence oft his soul lay bare 
To cooling and healing night, they would attest : 
Not for a Purpose veering from its course, 
Nor stayed — like birds of passage, light-be- 
wildered. 
Or clamor-dazed — gave he the midnight hours 
To rapt and lone devotion. There the stars 
Beheld one purer than the Tiberian waves, 
That crooned about the hills on which he prayed ; 
And if they twinkled through those long dim 

nights 
On throneward gropings, 'twas a Throne not 
builded 

[37] 



OUTBOUND 

With hands, nor upheld by legions. . . . One must 
live 

Not to doubt annals; yet experience 

The ripest feels at moments : truce to dreams ! 

Reality 's at war with human credence ! 

Leech, he who walked the courts of prayer at 
night 

To quench hosannas, died mock-crowned, mock- 
mantled, 

Mock-sceptered ! . . . 

V 

Ay, the water-cruse! My lips 
Grow parched with speaking. Thanks ! — What 's 

human life 
But quenchless thirst; and if one come who 

brings 
The cup we swoon for, drouth-delirious madmen, 
We dash it down and curse the giver. Once 
He came to me : I strewed the ground with shards. 
— Beneath the acacia-tree, a stone 's throw hence, 
I lounged one day in dreams, his dreams who 

sends 
His soul abroad, searching dim time for light. 
Too epic life fell cold upon my ear 
Listening : it strained to catch from far-off deeds 

[38] 



THE GREAT REFUSAL 

The seldom note of the lyric human. Chilled, 
I wandered 'mid marmoreal coronals 
Of past dead greatness, till a prayer for life, 
Warm-pulsing life not tombed in sacred roll, 
Escaped me. Scarce its voice was hushed when lo. 
Emerging in the reach of mellow distance, 
A nomad band ! As one who sees afar 
Sluggishness disengage itself from cloud 
And grow into a sail, at gaze I stood. 
Expectant, half aware some strange new hope 
Was near its natal moment. . . . Sudden gusts 
Made shimmer 'mid the olive-groves ; date-palms 
Loomed lone at intervals. What loitering folk 
Kept nearing yonder ? . . . Now a dip in the road 
Filched them from sight. — Already I had learned 
What wondrous things wrought one of Galilee, 
As tidings told; the like sick Naaman thrilled. 
Hearkening the little captive maid. Ere long 
His faring might be hither. . . . Doubtless these 
Were only paschal pilgrims, harbingered 
By no chance fame. . . . Yet haply — ! All at once 
My heart waxed prescient of what Visitant 
It tarried, and I straightway hied me forth, 
Passionate as heat upquivering at noon 
Sunward. Anon, our meeting, — they at halt 
In wonder. Through his followers I plunged 

[a9] 



OUTBOUND 

Infallibly to his feet, and cried : ' ' Good Master, 
Declare me sooth, beseech thee, wherewithal 
I may attain as thou the life eterne ! " . . . 
Somewhat delayed his answer, till I dared 
Lift up my gaze, ... I had not dreamed our race 
Could flower into such manhood all divine. . . . 
But language skills not ! That's the potter's art. 
To take a bit of docile clay and with 
Creative touch make it a cup for kings. 
Whose art shall body forth in clayey words 
That visioned Cup, shaped for the King of 

kings? . . . 
For something even in that face of his 
Bespake a greater greatness than himself, 
A soul compassionate beyond compassion. . . . 
"Good? wherefore call me good?" he breathed 

at length 
Reflectively. "Who is there such but God!" 
A moment he let intervene, and then — 
"Thou knowest the commandments of the law: 
Do, and thou livest," came his quiet words. 
Impulsively brake from my lips : ' ' All this 
I've kept inviolably even from youth." 
Then what unfathomed tenderness of eyes. 
The while he said : ' ' One thing thou lackest : sell 
All that thou hast and give the poor, and be 

[40] 



THE GREAT REFUSAL 

My follower. There shall then be thine instead 
Treasure in heaven." ... I arose, stood facing 

him. 
Meseemed a curtain drew asunder: lo, 
What scenery to baffle sight: sheer mount, 
Precipice, snow ; nor road to climb, nor — goal ! . . . 
A seascape, not the blue with mottling green 
Of summer sea, but whelming shoreless white, 
And one lone ship 's distress ! , . . Certes, 'twas 

strange, 
The wisdom, he dispensed who yet was wise,; — 
The saying from his lips who yet must be 
Interpreter to men of sovereign Word! . . . 
To mint my all into a shining alms, 
Wherewith to gorge the mendicant palm, myself 
Thus beggaring, — what manner of mandate, this ? 
What manner of life? Treasure in heaven, and 

yet 
What life — here, now? . . . Swifter than I can 

tell, 
Alternatives rehearsed themselves in thought. 
Intrinsically dross, 'twas wealth at least 
Bulwarked me somewhat 'gainst the crude im- 
pact 
Of nothingness. Flocks, herds, and acres were 
The surety for some privacy of dream, 

[41] 



OUTBOUND 

And walled-in garden-plot of inward beauty. . . . 
Thus I ! — and him aface with, nerved with race- 
nerves, 
Along which flashed world-agonies; his mind 
A race-mind, drinking like a firmament 
The light of stars; a racial heart, his heart, 
Tropic with all the ecstasies of man ! . . . 
How like a shallow pool of muddiest water, 
The dwindling life of self beside such vast 
Of oceanic living! Purblind I, 
To stand not seeing in that hour of test 
The contrast! — swiftly reasoning instead 
After this wise: Who is it bids me thus 
By surgery of utter sacrifice 
Attain to life ? Is 't verily life he lives. 
Self-generative, inwardly renewing 
Itself perpetually in power? He hath 
The spirit look, oblivious of things. 
Of one who yoke -mates with Eternity, — 
The beatific grace of brow, and yet 
By very reason thereof, too aloof 
And otherworldly for reality, 
Perchance a dreamer, not the seer of vision, 
Man should not be talaria-shod, and tread 

[42] 



THE GREAT REFUSAL 

Tenuous ether like a star. Remove 

From 'neath one the foundation props of 

matter — 
Crash ! — ay, inevitably, soon or late ! . . . 
— Slaying the potency of high resolve 
By indecision, not direct refusal, 
I stood deliberate thus at forking ways. 
Despite myself I turned and gazed about 
Upon his followers. Neither staff nor scrip 
Had they. Beyond a doubt, discipleship 
Meant living hand to mouth, all forethought 

waived — 
Pruned sense for spirit flowering. . . . Suddenly 
I caught as 'twere a leer upon the face 
Of one wearing a purse, that from his belt 
Dangled, responsive to a clutching hand 
Pendulum-wise. . . . Almost I gasped for breath. 
With dread stranglingly seized. My heart, till 

then 
Sensitive like a balance, hesitant 
What dip to yield, precipitately plunged 
By the increment of — was't the purse accurst, 
Or snaky leer ? . . . A speechless moment 's pause, 
And I was going from thence. . . . 

[43] 



OUTBOUND 

VI 

The water-cruse 
Again ! With yet a pillow prop me. So ! 
— Three decades' early and latter rains have 

brought 
Continuous increase to that fatal wealth 
Whose plenitude hath only pauperized. 
Yet not a lifetime's tutoring taught me this, 
Nor Death's immutable "Overboard with it," 
Heard like a captain's orders in a storm, 
Waxed to the uttermost. I knew before, 
'Twas vanity — but what I came to know, 
Listen ! A scant twelve-moon elapsing since 
The event I've told of, in Jerusalem 
I sojourned, fain of throngs, because too much, 
Solitude in its beauty among hills. 
The muffled pastoral lowings from green fields, 
Coerced me into thought. Could but the self 
At will be 'scaped from, as one turns to the wall 
The picture of a dead insistent face, 
I had been happy. As it was, the days 
And nights were gall and wormwood in my cup. 
The self-same poison-bath of history. 
The reek from spent religion's oilless wick. 
The nation 's frustrate Messianic hope ! . . . 

[44] 



THE GREAT REFUSAL 

Thus inward murk enhanced, which books pe- 
rused 
But deepened. Men, like vermin to me now, 
Perforce I sought, as one in dungeon vault 
Diverts himself with spiders weaving webs, 
Or mice, stolen in, which thus keep madness out. 
The causeway trod became my opiate, 
The mart, my anodyne for pain. Abroad 
I witnessed deeds of violence unmoved. 
Such as inflicted on his countrymen 
Made Moses slay the Egyptian. Populace 
And foreign soldiery in bloody clash 
Daily, nay, hourly, seemed to me as much 
Mechanics as the promontoried shore 
Charged by the legionry of lunar tides. 
Fierce seethed the caldron of the nation's hate 
With bubble and hiss, and desperately the ladle 
Of Roman power kept skimming off revolt. 
Yet martial law imposed upon the world. 
Mankind explosively at boil beneath, 
Seemed nature spectacle to me, a part 
Of brute irrationality, writ large 
In elemental hurly-burly, force 
Wrestling with matter, while the universe 
Looks on, indifferent as Caesar crowned 
Which triumph, so but muscle remain taut. 

[45] 



OUTBOUND 

— ^What wonder that in stolidness, one day, 
I stumbled on what seemed a street-brawl, part 
Of current turbulence supposedly ! 
Presently in the midst of weltering mob 
I had submerged me utterly. A dog 
Three-headed, gentile fables tell of, guards 
The gates of hell. A myriad-headed wolf. 
Tongues lolling and teeth gnashing, thus kept 

watch 
Where Pilate's mansion with its grim facade 
O'ertowers the centra,! thoroughfare. The glut 
Suddenly merged into one wolfish throat 
With ''Crucify him!" its reiterate cry 
Of frenzy. . . . Leech, hast swum where tidal 

seas 
Make suction among scooped out reefs till brine 
Is leonine in massed ferocity? 
Such did I feel that human undertow 
Wherein I swam, thus gaining luckily 
The wall-projection clutched and clung to. Mean- 
time 
The palace door had oped, through which emerged 
The governor into view, and — soldier-led, 
Who if not he . . . the Galilean prophet ! 
That instant made me human. . . . Though afar, 
His face I saw above the folded arms. . . . 

[46] 



THE GREAT REFUSAL 

What peace! — like western heavens in after- 
glow ! . . . 
Conspicuous stood Pilate in command. 
The mob perplexed and angered him as told 
His gestures, menacing, expostulating, 
To get the hearing vainly sought withal. 
Their '^Crucify him! Crucify him!" louder 
But waxed each moment. Presently a guard. 
Signed to, was fetching in an ewer and basin, 
And lo, Pontius Pilate, governor. 
Washing his hands! That symbol-speech spake 

home. 
Such frenzied glee ! Yet all the while afar. 
He of the folded arms 'twixt soldiers twain 
Perturbless in his peace ! . . . I followed him 
A few hours later on his deathward climb 
Up the hill. Calvary, and there saw nailed 
His quivering form to a rood, and raised aloft. 
I caught from him a recognizing glance 
Sent down ere the last swoon ; nor me alone. 
His eyes remembered: him who sundered us, 
Him of the purse accurst and snaky leer, 
Him, his betrayer, as 'twas whispered me, 
They turned their full compassionate gaze upon. 
The while he paused in the way beneath his cross. 

[47] 



OUTBOUND 

That lingering gaze turned backward to forgive 
Published the universe — God ! . . . 

VII 

Ay, fan my brow ! 
— It is a time makes kingdoms warp and crack, 
The epoch ages visibly for death. 
Despair hangs vastly brooding o'er the world. 
There's not a tree about Jerusalem, 
But, straining to the requisite height, may serve 
As instrument retributive for us 
Who slew the Anointed One. I see, I see, 
Judgment impends — and penalty which time, 
Elapsing, makes but terrible the more ! 
Yet outward desolations, what are they — 
The scoriae downpour, earthquake shock, and fire, 
Without, compared with desert drouth within. 
From whence in the end more surely a Dead Sea ! 
Strange, strange inscrutably, that in our hands 
Choice and rejection thus should lie, whereby, 
Saved or undone, we owe it to ourselves ! . . . 
The years flow on, his memory remains, 
As o'er the blue-grey Jordan ever flowing, 
A white cloud anchored lies immovably 
Reflected, through a breathless summer's day. 

[48] 



THE GREAT REFUSAL 

Wherever I have dwelt and sojourned, he, 
Too, dwelt and sojourned, I beneath his eyes 
Escapeless ! In long watches of the night, 
He came instead of sleep ; by day, at tasks, 
A moment's pause for rest, and lo, — his face! 
Hence, too, the ache and pathos of my days, 
To live my Great Refusal o'er and o'er 
In thought and dream, — again, and yet again, 
Him to reject whom fain I would accept. 
Thus in one deed 's remembrance is the stuff 
For countless dooms. The beaker spilled became 
A brook, a river, seas ! . . . Strengthened and 

cleansed 
Of vision by austerities lived through, 
I turn my gaze from watery chaos plunged 
Abyssward, to the sheeted mist whereon 
Perpetual rainbow. What if it should prove, 
Defeat to him was Victory indeed ! 
Searching, searching, as one with hand agrope 
In darkness, till he ope a door and stand 
Beneath the sky, I ask and win response. 
Verily, depth discovers itself height, 
The more I gaze ! Hence his prophetic eyes 
Recognized in the people's enmities 
Unripened worships ; hence even from the cross 
Saw garnered from his three-years' ministry 

[49] 



OUTBOUND 

Millennial corn; therefore he cried aloud, 
' ' It is finished ! " . . . and so yielded up his breath. 
The Love which so could fellowship with men, 
Which so could die — slowly my consciousness 
Hath heaved itself through dark tempestuous 

doubt 
Toward the conviction : it is He, the Christ ! . . . 

VIII 

My speaking emptied me of strength, and yet 
In spirit I'm the stronger that I spake, — 
Stronger and more at peace, as if my heart 
Had been assoiled of blemishment somehow. 
There's devious traveling betwixt birth and 

death. 
And little knows the traveler whom he meets 
And lets go by ungreeted. Presently 
I knew! . . . Draw me the curtain to. I'd sleep. 



[50] 



JUDGMENT 



Judgment 

Today, one fateful moment, Soul 
Made craven compromise with Sense : 

I shudder, journeying toward the goal 
Of Crisis, days or ages hence. 



[51] 



OUTBOUND 



Good Friday 

The spirit's natural aliment and cup 
Upon a day like this is solitude : 
Withdrawn afar the heart partakes of food, 
And entered into quietness doth sup. 
Spent winds, and dews distilling drop by drop, 
And shades in wake of lapsed sun and moon, 
The mind to that world-agony attune. 
And cry wherewith His breath He rendered up. 
Thus ponder I that Tragedy Divine, 
That scenery abyssed in gloom and dole — 
Gone forth beneath the awesome stars abroad; 
Thus ask I, being of thy ninety and nine: 
Great Universe, who shepherd art of Soul, 
What didst thou with the One — the Lamb of 
God? . . . 



[52] 



SABBATH 



Sabbath 

I KNOW it by the twilight hush, 

The trance that follows evening's flush; 

By hill and dell that leaf-bestrewn 

Slumber beneath the autumn moon. 

From breathless heavens, the cloud-filmed night 

Silvers it forth in pensive light; 

And every star the message brings: 

There's Sabbath at the heart of things. 

I know it by the storms that die 
In the large quietude of sky ; 
By stillness of oncoming dawn ; 
By silences of years withdrawn. 
Yea, if I read the blue aright. 
The meaning of its starry night. 
And catch the song Creation sings, 
There's Sabbath at the heart of things! 



[53] 



OUTBOUND 



Vita Brevis 

If our scrimp life, methoiiglit, might lengthen 

out 
To parallel Methuselah's in years, 
Or even were such in age as made us peers 
Of patriarchs, unhaste were well, no doubt. . . . 
Fool ! seeing we pass our predetermined route 
In fourscore revolutions of the spheres 
At utmost, all the more forswear with fears 
Precocious deed, struggle, and strain, and shout. 
The soul herein should tutored be by field 
And prairie : these in flush of ardent May 
Conserve the Sabbath mood in joy's despite; 
And, knowing how brief the months ere they 

must yield. 
Sink into vast serenity by day. 
And quietude of pulseless dream by night. . . . 



[54] 



AT SCHOOL 



At School 



A Teacher once had pupil followers, 
A motley number. His most gifted ones 
He placed within a garden rich with flowers, 
To cultivate and keep it, bidding them 
Not fail to bring the fairest blooms to Him. 
Hemmed in with bee-loud hedges they abode 
Awhile in gladness, and such perfumes breathed 
As match in lure the music of blent lyres. 
And, passing, leave behind a wake of dreams. 
But feasting thus their sense in the delight 
Of blowing wonders, whereon humming birds. 
Darting, became a trance of wings, and moths 
Made sojourn at first twilight, they forgot 
The Master, — sheer forgot; and, staled in soul. 
Warped cunning to extract flower essences, 
Distilling, flasking attar for its own sake. 

II 

To others of the pupil throng He oped 
His library, a central garner fed 

[55] 



OUTBOUND 

By conflux from all granaries of mind, — 
A land that flowed with milk and honey of books ; 
Bade ponder wisdom there that so in the end 
At His feet, as an offering, they might lay 
The fruits of ripe reflection. Thus a space 
Mindful of such high ultimate purpose fixed, 
They searched the teeming tomes, with mind and 

heart 
One throbbing mutual ardor ; but in time, 
Their entrance vows forgot, they waned in zest, 
With lore too sated ; and at length became 
Like holiday children, who, all tired of sea. 
Upon a beach the patient ages wrought 
With coral, pry out fossil curios, — 
Shells, irised by the tide, to prink themselves 
For mirrors : thus fastidiously they culled 
From curious bric-a-brac washed up by books. 
Nor knew that so were bartered realms for beads, 
And dawdled hours away to no avail. 

Ill 
Still others the good Master singled out 
For the office of dispensing in His house 
Its generous hospitalities ; to receive 
And feast His guests, and — specially enjoined 
By mandate — to bring all at last to Him. 
Made temporary lords and mistresses 

[56] 



AT SCHOOL 

Of frescoed halls, hung round with chandeliers, 
That radiantly lamped the festal glee. 
They, too, — and sooner than all else — forgot 
Their charge, and waxing flabby in soul thought 

only 
To supplement already costliest wines 
With rare inmelted pearls; to smother brows 
Beneath more opiate garlands, — day and night. 
Lolling at feasts, with gossip, posture, smirk, 
And all the shrunk inanities of Mode. 

IV 

What pupils yet remained, a company 
Most numerous, this Master with designs 
Unguessed, assigned to every service drear 
And toilsome: these, doorkeepers to admit 
Others to festive halls, themselves compelled 
To endure without the sleety tempest ; those, 
Like sumpter-beasts, bred for such end, to bear 
Burdens the long day through. And lo! the 

thralls, 
Though not suspecting salt earth-drunken tears 
And sweat preserve the land, else putrid, sweet 
And wholesome, yet swerved not from loyalty 
To the seeming Author of their fate : nay more, 
Urged thereto by their tasks ' repulsiveness, 

[57] 



OUTBOUND 

But thought with greater longing, passionate love, 
Of Him they served ; nor grudged to build their 

throes 
Into protecting walls for the favored few 
In garden, or who meditated books 
To fruitful ends for the Master, — even for them, 
The revelling overseers of His house. 

V 
If the Master, some eventual Day, had scanned 
Records . . . each several one and class by class. 
Or ere Vacation, — the long school-year o'er, 
Verily, how had first been last! last, first! 



[58] 



ELECTRIC PEAK 



Electric Peak 

There towers aloft a mountain height somewhere, 
So pregnant with rich ore within, they say. 
No trustiest instrument can make survey 
Of bosky lands, its mighty slopes upbear. 
Betimes above its brow in summer air 
There's revelry of lightning. Such to-day. 
Existence : much of thunder-storm display. 
But of what use is the soul 's transit there ? 

Only withdrawn from the Electric teak, 
The vibrant intuitions become true ; 
Only when for this hot desire to do. 
To be is made the goal toward which we seek. 
The thing we would we know ; the word we speak 
Which is ourselves ; nor frustrate need we strew 
One seed not yielding its fulfilment due. 
If still earth's heritage is of the meek. 



[59] 



OUTBOUND 



Love's Epiphany 

As WHEN the moody Western Sky hath flung 
A withered sunset rose-like from her hand, 
Bleak, mist-enwrapped, lie mountain, vale, and 

Btrand, 
With stilly brooding twilight overhung; 
Till suddenly from clouds, wind-rifted, sprung. 
The moon as if with touch of magic wand 
Thrills into silvery whiteness sea and land, 
And snowy glides the new-blown stars among — 
So, after flaming youth had passed, I knew 
The wistfulness of pensive twilight hour, 
When lo ! a moon-pure Spirit rose to view, 
And touched me with its all-creative power : 
And 'neath its flooding radiance I grew 
Whiter than earth or sea — by night, in flower. 



[60] 



SONG 



Song 

People my sleep to-night 
With dreams of thee! 
Lonely hath been the day, 
Deprived thy sight; 
Lonely the night will be, 
Thou still away ! 

Forlorn in the noon throng,- 

Thou wast not there ! 

In solitude forlorn. 

At even-song! 

Oh, to behold thee ere 

Again the mom ! 

Again the morn, and thou 
Being not its light, 
More dark the dawn will be 
Than darkness now! 
People my sleep to-night 
With dreams of thee! 



[61] 



OUTBOUND 



Interim 

Oft waiting to put by my sumpter's load, 
But Sleep, the sweet deliverer, hours away, 
Spent have I sat, 'mid shadowy thoughts that lay 
Like evening on hushed waters. Overflowed 
With moonlight soon the shores of revery glowed, 
Where seeking covert I was fain to stay,^ — 
Escaped, a thrall, unmanumitting Day, 
Escaped, a drudge, Hours of the yoke and goad. 
Anear the plashy marge, that interim. 
Dream deepened into trance ; to sit and hark 
Was peace that even slumber knows not of: 
The while ebbed sea again became abrim, 
Erasing stars from canvas of the dark, 
I limned the wondrous face of her I love. 



[62] 



TRYST 



Tryst 

As when a yester June comes back in dream 
To one in bleak midwinter, and reclad 
With all the vernal loveliness they had, 
Forest and plain no longer naked seem 
Beneath the snows that swirl, the rains that 

stream ; 
Earth and the sky throbbing as in the mad 
Ardor of vanished prime again are glad ; 
And glad is he for whom with life they teem ; — 
As one thus dreaming in a season drear 
Rehearses Summer, until inwardly 
Thrilled with her very presence as with wine, — 
Thrilled with her, palpable to eye and ear, 
And yet all spirit — such, to-night, with thee 
Hath been my tryst of dream, woman divine ! 



[63] 



OUTBOUND 



**As Weds the Skimming Dove** 

As WEDS the skimming dove 

Some little wave of blue, 
My winged heart would wed thee, Love, 

And be ensilvered too. 

As dawn empearls the wing 
Of lark that sings its bliss, 

My heart, that soars with caroling, 
"Would twinkle with thy kiss. 

As sunset all the West 

O'erflows in its decline, 
Love, this heart would be at rest. 

And blend its life with thine ! 



[64] 



ASPIRATION 



Aspiration 

A LITTLE drop of water lay 
And yearned for purity one day. 

But one desire its longing knew: 
To be transfigured into dew ; 

To leave the gutter and the mart, 
And twinkle in a blossom's heart. . . 

Ere long the wind came dancing up, 
And bore aloft the dreaming drop ; 

And out of vernal sky of blue 
The sunbeams lent it pinions, too. 

At last as dew it found repose 
Within the bosom of a rose. . . . 

The soul would be immaculate : 
Creator, what will be its fate? 



[65] 



OUTBOUND 



Plighted 

And knowest thou why I have refrained 
So long from suing for thy lips? 

Why wan and cold I have remained 
'Neath self-imposed eclipse? 

It was not fear to breathe the word, 
Might bring the skyey glory^ — thee; 

Nor happiness a while deferred, 
That bliss the more might be; 

But I was thrilled with the intent 
To be as realms of azure are. 

Before I asked the firmament 
To spare its loveliest star. 

I purposed from the surge and swell 
Perfection's iris first to win: 

And I — uniridescent shell, 
Enclose the pearl within ! . . . 

Yet felt I not that being shod 
With fiery longings for the Goal 

[66] 



PLIGHTED 

Must mean ascent from depths of clod 
To pinnacles of soul ; 

And did not ages past affirm 

That upward trend all living things; 

Were very writhings of the worm 
Not prayer to God for wings — 

This moment even I had not durst, 
Though drunken with thy beauty's wine, 

Thrust years or aeons by and burst 
To merge thy life with mine. 



[67] 



OUTBOUND 



**As Grows An Isle** 

As GROWS an isle with corals numberless 
Until it clasps the quiet pure lagoon, 
Whose utter depths, too deep to sound, lie strewn 
With ocean 's wealth of irised loveliness ; 
And hastes in tropic flowers and vine to dress 
Its naked clay ; and waves with forest soon 
Of palmy screen against the burning noon : 
A paradise of bliss and beauteousness — 
So round thy fair pellucid life I grow. 
With all its wealth of thought and dream beneath. 
Within me there's a quickening and glow; 
And some day I shall clasp thee with a wreath 
Of consummated manhood — unwithstood, 
Since worthy thy consummate womanhood. 



[68] 



HOLY MATRIMONY 



Holy Matrimony 

It is not being wed, 
Albeit pact be sealed by priest 
Before glad kin who come with gifts 
From near and far and sit at feast. 

Who pass from altars forth 

As twain abide till soon or late, 

When lanced with grief or stung with shame, 

Their hearts grow one, co-sharing fate ; 

And other twain at length, 
Whatever payment made. Time's toll. 
Awake, knowing their marriage morn. 
Because they love as Soul and Soul. 



[69] 



OUTBOUND 



The Brook 

(To F. G. H.) 

A Brook I know whereof I dream 

A princess wild is she, 
To wax into a queenly stream, 

And wed the royal sea. 

She dances from her mountain home 

Into the morning sun ; 
Dallies with rainbows — dashes foam 

Upon their hopes anon. 

Where barrier her laughter stems, 

Tree-bole or rocky cleft. 
From her pure breast she plucks the gems. 

And strews them right and left. 

The grass flings down an emerald cloak 

Before her dainty tread; 
A fern would willingly be oak 

To canopy her head. 

[70] 



THE BROOK 

She gives her ringlets many a toss, 
She knows the realm's her own, 

Yet shares her princessdom with moss, 
And diadems a stone. 

Singing, singing, the livelong day, 

Pelting a vale with glee ! 
Her whereabout? — Ah, I'll not say. 

Nor who this Brook can be ! 



71] 



OUTBOUND 



My Daughter 

There was such glee in that frail envelope 

Of body which is she, that I scarce knew 

From moment to laughing moment what was 

due 
Of fate that might befall her. Such a scope 
Of ecstasy, such zest in things, and hope ! 
Such footing brinks in every breath she drew, 
And sheer escapes ! Fresh as in heights of blue 
Wildgoat among the crags or antelope. 
Her spirit ! . . . Years have sped, yet unsubdued, 
Splendidly madcap, live to finger-tips. 
Woman as girl ! Not now rash clambering up 
Of steep, or plunging headlong into flood, 
And yet — adventure : holding to her lips 
Immediacy like a brimming cup. 



[72] 



TO FATHER AT EIGHTY 



To Father at Eighty 

Once, leaving to sail 
Far over sea abroad, 
I lingered on a knoll and let 
A last returning glance 
Give me back home and kin, 
Give me back thee, standing there in the sun- 
set .. . 
Ere the dip of highway, flood. 
And unknown lands. 

Now, voyage ahead, 

'Tis thou lingering dost stand. 

Letting the backward glance 

Gather up kindred, home, 

Wafted farewells, thy eighty years of life . . . 

At gaze alone. 

In beautiful quiet sundown, 

Boun for the great Sea! 



[73] 



OUTBOUND 



Ad Matrem 

In a dream last night I stood — 
Mother mine ! Mother mine ! — 
Thy lone grave without, a key 
In my hand, wherewith I would 
Unlock the turf that led to thee — 
Mother mine ! . . . 

But no doorway found I there, — 
Mother mine ! Mother mine ! — 
Threshold none, though once 'twas trod, 
Neither entrance anywhere. 
Save bolted by three-decade sod — 
Mother mine ! . . . 

Then I vowed myself awake, — 
Mother mine ! Mother mine ! — 
Only to renew my vow: 
I will yet behold thee, — slake 
My thirst for thee in Vision, thou 
Mother mine ! . . . 



[74] 



CONDOLENCE 



Condolence 

Communion with thy Loved One gone before, 
In revery by day, in dream by night, 
Sustain thee, lest thou faint or perish quite. 
The isle that hath been visited too sore 
With earthquake, healing Time cannot restore : 
Yet seek what shelter may be. Touch and sight 
Failing us, would with subtler sense we might 
Foresee the Dawn of soul with soul once more ! 
All lorn shalt thou not dwell, so visioned: he, 
Who, Sidney-like, was gentle, brings a cup 
To quicken thee athirst; and in thy stead 
Will bear the widowed burden tenderly; 
Will enter in at dusk and with thee sup : 
We live environed by our noble dead. 



[75] 



OUTBOUND 



Acknowledgment 

You among hills wherennto the sea's marge is, 
I at the heart of inland snowy plain : 

Ah, how more myriad than the snow Love's 
largess ! 
Splendider than your main ! 



76] 



CALAMUS 



Calamus 

When Phidias his Zeus had wrought complete 

To front the Greek Olympiads with law, 

In godhead such as the blind singer saw 

Give pledge to Thetis of the silver feet, 

A name he chiseled where no eye would meet, 

Somewhere upon a finger of the god, — 

Of locks ambrosial and the thunderous Nod 

Thus meekly making dedication sweet. 

If songs — even these wherein so much amiss. 

Something of old achievement had to boast. 

Soaring where step by step they now ascend, 

What gain withal other than art's in this? 

For still but utterleast were uttermost 

That friend would fain make dedicate to Friend. 



[77] 



OUTBOUND 



To A. W. G. 

What inspiration flowered at prime 

In melody, I owe it her: 
She searched the calyx of each rhyme, 

And sipped — if any sweets there were. 

Though now in sundered spheres we ply 
The tasks that unto each belong. 

She's still the ruby-throat . . . whom I 
Saw poised above my firstling song. 



[78] 



EXODUS 



Exodus 

My mind this morn was a hive in spring, 
Yet, in spite of my utmost heed, 

The gypsy swarm stole away on the wing. 
With a queen-bee thought in the lead ; 

Buzzed away in the morning beams 
To wassails of fresh honey brew : 

Ah, me, how hard to domesticate dreams! 
How madder than mad to pursue ! 



[70] 



OUTBOUND 



Coincidence 

On river marge I strolled. 

Midstream in patient rings a hawk patrolled, 

Then— bolt-like fell : 

Gleamed 'neath it, rising, the clutched pickerel. 

That instant, too, mid-thought 

Plunged and emerged again with prey long 

sought 
A taloned bird: 
My sonnet, holding in fierce clutch — a word. 



[80] 



RECOGNITION 



Recognition 

''My songs are sung," I said. 

"Songless because unwed 

To Beauty, I must linger out my days. 

The Vision me hath jilted ; 

With spirit parched and wilted, 

Already I am autumn browns and grays. 

Suffice youth 's preludings : 

Henceforward — silent strings ! 

And better so, ay, haply better so ! 

One pang the less thereby shall manhood know. 

For who saw yet out of his soul 's emprise 

Plenal fulfilment rise? 

When greatly the heart purposeth, 

Lo— death!" . . . 

So I, touching my lot, 

And from four walls betook myself abroad. . . . 

''Dear God! 

And is it June ? I had forgot — forgot ! 

Lush leafage, glint of wings ; 

Nesting aloft in branch, and throat that sings ; 

[81] 



OUTBOUND 

The same passionate robin ecstasy 

From tripped-o'er lawn, out of the crown of tree, 

As in the yester springs 

Linked bliss to bliss, and mated my child's glee. 

Why the World's beautiful: her brow was old 

And wrinkled, only mirrored in a book. 

Seen face to face, behold 

How virginal and fresh 

And sweet of flesh, — 

Perennially young, and singing like a brook!" 

Thus strolled I, spirit-cheered, 

A way oft frequented because apart 

From the many's tread, and noises 

Of raucous-throated mart. 

Yet double-fringed with dwellings. Thrift had 

reared. 
And little children's voices 
Made laughter in my heart, — 
Involuntary laughter, like the jet 
Of rainbow out of murky mist and wet. 
Each tendril of upcurling smoke, 
Which the hearth within bespoke, 
Each dooryard which a lilac bush made green. 
Each window curtained clean, 
Flung me an alms of gladness as I passed 

[82] 



RECOGNITION 

With eyes that craved their dole. 
**If," said I, in that moment's cheer of soul, 
''With the simple come and go of days content, 
I so could live, letting their good and ill 
Alternate as they will; 

Not poisoning sunshine, asking if 'twill last; 
To blinding sleet and rain indifferent, 
So but some hours be bright, 
Mine would be peace at least if not delight. 
Put to no desperate shifts 
To compass aims beyond the scope of gifts. 
Yet out of such so lowly life might I 
Climb a little nearer, haply, to the sky, — 
By a trail of human interests led up, 
Windingly higher and higher, the mountain top. 
Ay, even for very lack of stature, be 
Called to up sycamore tree 
By One that in my house this night would 
sup!" . . . 

Thus quickened, passed I far 

Out into a wide amplitude of plain, — 

Of the healing sunset fain. 

Of vesper quiet, new moon, and first star. 

And her I love saw I with inner eye — 

Lovelier than the sky; 

[83] 



OUTBOUND 

And spake faltering: "Truly it is thou, 
Known by the token of thy touch, 
By the whiteness of thy brow : 
Sundown was oft our tryst, — still be it such. 
I came, 'tis true, from other fount to drink. 
But here upon the brink 
Of thee let my soul's cup be filled instead 
With living water — thee : I am athirst ; 
I am anhungered for thee as for bread. 
Brood 'er me as the spirit dove o 'er chaos : 
Thou knowest what inner terrors oft affray us 
Who are devotees of the fierce godhead. Song, 
By pact which we could break not, if we durst. 
'Twas therefore that erstwhile in bitter doubt 
I did thee wrong. 

Thinking that me, thine own, could Beauty flout. 
That me, thine own still, henceforth she hath left 
To pine away in darkness, song-bereft: 
And yet beside me now 

Art thou not here, is she not here, being 
thou?" ... 

Back from my stroll, within four walls I sat. 
The wick becoming weaned of oil, 
I shook the lamp to illume again my toil. 
Anon the hearkened clock with twelvefold stroke 

[84] 



RECOGNITION 

Made yesterday of the erewhile study hours, 
Made yesterday of the lamp 's ebbing out, 
Yet grieved I not thereat. 
Despite the darkness, was not June without? 
And the little eot-hemmed street, with sleeping 

folk. 
Replenishing its powers 

For tomorrow's unhived goings to and fro? 
And out in the far plain . . . nay, nay, not so, 
But Presence here and Spouse, by night, by day. 
Beauty, with me alway ! 



85] 



OUTBOUND 



Founders' Day 

Fastidious what dead her Minster floor 

Shall cover, England's ancient Abbey stands, 

A sweet memorial from days of yore. 

Sought out by feet of pilgrims from all lands. 

Whoever heeds her vesper chimes and steals 

Into the hallowed precinct, though his heart 

An alien be to prayer 

And praise, a subtle sense of worship feels; 

And lingers, dreamy-eyed, where sculptor's art 

Records what master minds have anchored there. 

Must that sweet spirit be to us unknown. 

Or must we seek it wandering oversea, 

In storied haunts with ivy overgrown, 

Or where long ages past have strewn debris? 

Is there no such ambrosia for the soul, 

Unless within dim choir and transept aisle 

A thousand years and more 

Echo the anthems that the living roll? 

No spell of dream, unless in cloistered pile 

We meditate the fames whose reign is o'er? . . . 

[86] 



FOUNDERS' DAY 

There once befell a strife among the Twelve 
O'er who was first in heavenly rank and power; 
And He Who deepest in the soul could delve, 
Who glimpsed in mustard-seed and wilding 

flower 
A parable of truth else undivined, 
Into their midst called forth a little child, 
And spake : ' ' Lo, chief est, he, 
In whom its lowliness of heart and mind!"- — 
By outward semblances of things beguiled, 
Our eyes are holden that we may not see. 

Our yesterdays may be too brief a space 

For ripening such charms as heart would feel; 

For giving sweet romance its subtlest grace 

And potency of exquisite appeal; 

Yet who survey these human acres, ploughed 

And seeded with ancestral pain, nor draw 

Some lesson from the sight, — 

Some new reminder whereby to be vowed 

To worthier ends beneath a higher Law, 

Do not commemorate the past aright. 

We meet to-day that from what was, what is 
And will be take increase of nobleness ; 
But for such festal moments we should miss 

[87] 



OUTBOUND 

Something of prescience : in the strain and stress, 
'Mid all the seeming nothings of our days, 
Who would not sink unnerved and all but spent. 
Must tutor himself brave. 
Pondering by what strange and devious ways 
The yester years pressed on and made ascent, 
With deeds not all convergent to the grave. 

When still the New-World continent, rich-soiled 

And teeming, lay like jungle in a trance ; 

When arrow-fanged, its every thicket coiled 

And hissed with interdict against advance 

Of the explorer or stern pioneer, 

Did they who thrid the trail or built the hut 

Surmise the future State? 

In the more lofty structures that we rear, 

Wherever toiling onward, are we not 

As ignorant of the purposes of fate ? 

Nor less the heroic discipline whereby 

Our wills are being schooled: the strain and 

strife 
Of adolescent cities, whence the cry 
Continuous of congested human life; 
The duel to the death 'twixt poor and rich ; 
The raucous chorus of an age of steam; 
The industrial thirst for gold — 

[88] 



FOUNDERS' DAY 

Are these not savagery indeed, to which 
Primeval pioneering tame doth seem, 
In sylvan wildernesses, trod of old? 

Nor boots it that our minds we saturate 

And flood with lore, undreamed of anciently, 

If so Truth perish that our sires made great; 

To us, the lords of matter, if it be 

An outworn or too nebulous a creed 

That things have worth as handmaids of the soul, 

Or else are wholly vain, 

"What profiteth our lordship us indeed ? 

What deeper insight, ours, to hint the Goal, 

Whereto, sore tried, the spirit would attain? 

It gropes to-day as it groped yesterday. 

Our darkling Whence no better understood, 

Our darkling Whither without beacon ray 

To guide toward highest end and ultimate good. 

In this atomic grist now being ground. 

Our husks of theory and unwinnowed fact, 

Is there potential Bread? . . . 

Perchance ! — Yet where already truth seems 

found, 
How much the sober morrow must retract ! 
And wherewith now is spirit to be fed? 

[89] 



OUTBOUND 

— Like pleadings of soft intermittent bells, 
In Sabbath stillness to come forth and be 
Of them that worship, unto one who dwells 
"Withdrawn into the self, where wistfully 
He broods in silence — such mild summonings 
Urge back the song into a gladder strain 
Of hope and festive cheer; 
To-day of all days, whosoever sings, 
Let him sing thankfulness that once again 
To honor Alma Mater we are here. 

If darkness fall, the more resplendent, She! 
If Mammon rise, her lips must teach the more 
That not in things possessed is majesty; 
If knowledge fail us, let her going before 
Track out new paths of truth, our feet may tread ; 
If doubt confuse, the accents of her voice 
Still shepherd us aright; 
If strenuous for high ends, though ill bested. 
Let there be recompense in knowing our choice 
Was such as to be pleasing in her sight. 

Her elder children born, the vanguard throng 
Of thronging generations yet to come, 
We sing a crescent glory: they in song 
Will hail it at the full when we are dumb. 

[90] 



FOUNDERS' DAY 

From loftier heights of blue, less cloud-obscured, 
The richer splendor of that beauty's dower 
Their gladder eyes will greet; 
And yet the light that through these years en- 
dured, 
We feel in this commemorative hour 
Hath been even as a lamp unto our feet. 

Ensanguined lest young Freedom's light should 

wane, 
Old battle-fields are sacred ; every shrine 
That treasures their memorials of pain 
Is therefore doubly hallowed and divine. 
If there are shoes 'tis fitting we unbind, 
Be it no less where man his bread has cast 
On waters of no fame ; 
Or wheresoever mind, enkindling mind, 
Into the Future from its flickering Past 
Sped forth a new relay of missive flame. 

Not overawed by fluctuating Time, 

The dauntless Spirit somehow triumphs on. 

Building new pinnacles and more sublime, 

For crumbled shrines from centuries agone. 

For every generation blotted out. 

With what wild fervor of impetuous breath 

[91] 



OUTBOUND 

Another doth appear! 

That mightily each advent means, who 11 doubt ? 

Nor but to cater revelry for Death, 

The nine-moon clusters ripen, year by year. 

Such paeans from ambiguous oracles 

May still be wrung as in the olden days : 

Be ours the old-time spirit that compels 

Destiny ; and be this alone our praise 

And guerdon, to have faltered not nor swerved 

In crises of the tragic racial strife 

And struggle to ascend! 

Be what they may, the aims by Time subserved. 

So the Eumenides of human life 

But choral benediction o 'er its end ! 



[92] 



MOTHERING 



*' Mothering*' 

''Amongst these (old customs) was a practice 
of going to see parents, and especially the female 
one, on the mid Sunday of Lent, taking for them 
some little present, such as a cake or a trinket. 
A youth engaged in this amiable act of duty was 
said to go 'a-mothering,' and hence the day itself 
came to he called 'Mothering Simday.' " 
Chambers' Book of Days. 

By the Sabbath of spirit enfolden, 

Which quiet and revery bring; 

In the light of years backward beholden, — 

Winged decades, too swift on the wing; 

Reviving the wont of days olden, 

Our hearts go a-mothering. 

What may we give her, the Mother, 
Whose travail of soul gave us birth ; 
Through whom we are sister and brother. 
Too one for the sundering earth — 
Trinket or cake or some other 
Gift of as trivial worth? 

[93] 



OUTBOUND 

Ah, but we need not to bring her 
Aught but ourselves in this hour ! 
The Vision asks naught of the singer 
Save alone that he flood with its power; 
Nor Moon, of the shadows that linger, 
Save that they drink of her shower. 

Ever in beauty all fadeless, 

She welcomes us back to her sight : 

Time, making leafless and bladeless 

The forest and meadow by flight. 

Her hath bedimmed not nor made less — 

Her like a star in the height! 

By the Sabbath of spirit enfolden, 

"Which quiet and revery bring; 

In the light of years backward beholden,- 

Winged decades, too swift on the wing; 

Reviving the love of days olden. 

Our hearts go a-mothering. 



[04] 



VALEDICTORY 



Valedictory 

"We have been captained well ! — So in this hour, 
Severing sailors ' bonds, we needs must feel ; 
He now to navigate with other keel, 
Our Captain ! . . . We shall miss him if the power 
Of storm us smite, remembering him a tower 
Of strength; and miss him, too, though pilot's 

wheel 
Steer us in placid waterways of weal, 
Where all's like summer sunshine after shower. 
It hath been joy to shake out or take in 
Sail to his masterful bidding; and lift gaze 
At his behest to midnight skies, and tell 
Our course by stars. . . . Whatso new ports he win, 
Whoso his crew to lead in coming days, 
God speed him still! We have been captained 

well! 



[95] 



OUTBOUND 



Progress 

Once on a time, six thousand years agone — 
Or twice or thrice six thousand — Trilobites 
Were the only people having eyes, and they 
Had scarce begun to have them, so that some 
Were yet sans eyes or signs of eyes to be. 
The utmost e'en their seers could ken as yet 
Was that in murk they lived their life, although 
Perchance there might be such a thing as light. 
As time went on, one of them so advanced 
That having haply come to the water's top 
By day, he saw the sun. So down he went 
And told the folk below, in general 
The world was light, whic?i state of things was 

caused 
By an all-illuming One. Him, then, they slew. 
Charged with disturbance of the commonwealth ; 
Yet deemed it impious ere long to doubt 
The world in general was light, and One 
The cause alone of light. But fierce disputes 
They had about the manner in which they 
Had come to know this. 

[96] 



PROGRESS 

Afterwards another 
Likewise so far advanced that being borne 
To the water's top by night he saw the stars; 
And going back he told the folk below 
The world in general was dark, but yet 
Had lights in a great number. Him they slew 
For maintenance of doctrines that were false. 
But from that time the Trilobites were split 
Into two parties, these maintaining this, 
Those, that, — until enough had learned to see, 
Monist and pluralist alike, with eyes. 



97] 



OUTBOUND 



Ambition 

Dewdrops in a blossom's cup 
Dream of buoying: vessels up. 

Every g:low-worm thinks 'twould grace 
The lost Pleiad's vacant place. 

If spheres retired, their music dumb, 
Motes would crv: ^^Mv hour is come!" 



[OS] 



A BLUR OF BUILDINGS" 



'*A Blur of Buildings" 

(On a distant prospect of a marine biological 
laboratory) 



A blur of buildings in the distance, 

Hills at their back, and at their front, the sea, 

All summer took my gaze with strange insistence, 

Whenso I strolled alone to be 

With the loveliness of shore 'twixt them and me. 

No rarer seascape e'er was gazed upon 

Than that beheld from where I 've stood : 

The Sea — a Solomon 

To Queen-of-Sheba rise and set of sun! 

And the sickle-curve of shore with surfy white 

Blossoming and reblossoming in the light! . . . 

Yet ofttimes vision ranging as it would 

Leapt to the clustered buildings glimpsed afar, 

To pore in quiet thought on what they are. 

A visible embodiment, lo, these. 

Of man's interrogating — here, of seas! 

His importuning things, 

[99] 



OUTBOUND 

Out of the Mystery that him enrings 
To make revealment somewhat of themselves. 
Elsewhere he barters, builds, or delves: 
Here he would know. . . . 
Whereof he covets lore, the vastness, lo! 
What he would understand, the deep, behold! 
Fain is he here of news 
What gamut hath the sea 
Of life from whale to animalculae ; 
What arc from massing kelp, the tide upflings, 
To filmiest vegetation out of ooze. 
Such Odyssey to travel here he makes him 
bold. . . . 

II 

Last night old Ocean shook with laughter. 

''Record tides?" 

I know the reason why he held his sides, — 

And laughed until the very earth 

Flooded with peals of silver mirth; 

I knew it after 

I saw the blur of white in coign of hills, 

And thought what place it fills. 

Methinks there must have come into his ken 

Somehow an inkling of its purpose, too. 

Someone had whispered him, I know not who, 

[100] 



''A BLUR OF BUILDINGS" 

That bent within sit spectacled sage men 

In microscopic study of the slime, 

His sputum ; that they tabulate and sum 

All the life-history and descent of scum 

Since when it rose in time; 

That by aquarium culled out from him 

They would epitomize his world aswim. . . . 

Ocean laughed 

Until the darkling hills thought him gone daft. 

I heard — broke into laughter, too, 

With the hilarious Deep, 

And laughed later again in sleep. 

And laughed, awake: so'd you, 

Getting old Ocean's (and my) point of view. 

Ill 

The Sea this morning is of other mood: 

His rondure — ah, how multihued! 

Like bubble 's iris 

All his attire is, — 

And I, as one at feast, partake of food. 

Afar out of a mist the wonted blur 

Of buildings now doth reoccur. 

The pigmy hath grown wrestler, giant-thewed, 

And I, a mocker erst, grow worshiper. . . . 

[101] 



OUTBOUND 

What though 'tis labor but of ants, our grapple 

With yonder sea's 

Staggering faunas, staggering floras, 

Immanent there beneath the blue-green dapple? 

Yet that we have not quailed, 

Yet that we durst confront such mysteries — 

Our Pelion piled on Ossa, albeit o'er lis 

Topless Olympus towers unsealed — 

Is cause for awe I trow, 

Is reason adequate for worship now. 

What though, while we aspire to know as gods. 

Our learning go to seed in mental pods? 

What though, by snail-like increments, our wit 

Make progress, compassing the infinite? 

Not what he is, what he would be 

Is Man 's sublimity ! 

And therefore from yon pharos of the mind 

Streams in upon me light till I grow blind. 

Yon clustered buildings dome themselves with 
Bky; 

I stand saluting: Presence goeth by. . . . 

Of the resplendent dead with awe I think. 

Through whom came Knowledge, link by toil- 
some link. 

Like one in trance behold I what's to do- — 

[102] 



^'A BLUR OF BUILDINGS" 

What desert wilds of sage, each morn anew, 

To hive-emerging bees. 

Cloistered Mendel saw — and wrought with peas ; 

Darwin with earth-worms, too. 

Not only in the vastnesses we search. 

But follow atom 's cue in smut and smirch ; 

Peer into slime, comb every discard lump 

Of matter, as the poor, a city's dump. 

Jewelry may be there . . . coin, too . . . who 

knows ? 
Enough to pay our way abroad ! 
Torn guide-books, haply, or soiled leaves from 

those, 
Yet Baedeker enough to travel God ! . . . 



[103] 



OUTBOUND 



**In My Father's House'* 

I LOVE, I love this beauteous world of ours, 

This irised shell whose pearl is Deity ! 

I love a forest wild, a maddened sea, — 

Their swaying massive greens; I love a flower's 

Dew-shimmer; swathing mist; the sun 'twixt 

showers ; 
The moon whose veil of cloud is half withdrawn ; 
That white-haired Quiet face to face with dawn, 
A mount which into lonely summit towers. 
I love the seamless blue of noon ; the shade, 
Rewoven pensively for sundown earth; 
I love the royal Thunder's cannonade 
Of gladness o'er a Rainbow's princely birth; 
I love the cosmic hush in space afar; 
I love the universe from mote to star. 



[104] 



OUT-OF-DOORS 



Out-of-Doors 

Just to inhale this prairie air, afoot, 
Out on a prairie road, flanked either side 
With stubble fields; just to reopen wide 
One's windowed soul, and every door flung shut. 
And let the winds blow through it; just to put 
Miles in the rear of me with strenuous stride, 
Men in the rear of me, and city's pride. 
Self in the rear, with no less reek and soot — 
The glee of it ! . . . They nibble and sip, no doubt, 
My out-of-doors, the folk who distanced me. 
Soft-cushioned in their car, that yonder fades. 
I walk and breathe: my soul's the leaping trout 
In a water brook, God 's mountain ecstasy, — 
Darting and swimming in the white cascades. 



[105] 



OUTBOUND 



Adolescence 

My Siren is a storm-disheveled wood, 

Toothed lightnings comb ; or torrent rush, that 

raves 
Down a circuitous channel, chaos paves. 
I climb aloft where Alpine solitude 
Lies yawning for an avalanche, its food. 
Just to halloo into the dark of caves. 
Ho, ho ! I envy mere-folk when the waves 
Froth like a royal ale for wassail brewed. 
1 crave adventure as the hunter, game; 
My being 's ichor must have fierce delight : 
A precipice with the strange lure and urge 
And shudder of recoil anigh the verge; 
Or python smoke in the dim toesined night, 
And savage glee of liberated flame. 



[106] 



LAKE LOUISE 



Lake Louise 

Out of blue-green Lake Louise, 

Singing waters came down to meet me, 

Danced from among their mountain trees. 
With shining morning face to greet me. 

God ! what space-congesting heights ! 

Peaks upsoaring and peak outwinging! . . 
What of the mirror of their flights, 

Whence poured that jubilance of singing? 

Up I climbed, the brook my guide. 
Up into grandeurs that ensky it. 

Till, ere I knew, lo, there beside 

Sheer mount, the azure-emerald Quiet ! 

Ever back of the song, the Soul ! 

Ever back of the dream, the Dreamer ! 
Ever back of the part, the Whole ! — 

And here, back of supreme, Supremer! . . 

Out of blue-green Lake Louise, 

Singing waters came down to meet me, — 
Lyric precursive prophecies 

Of what fulfilled ere long did greet me ! 

[107] 



OUTBOUND 



The Kingbird 

I LIKE the little bird! 
Yesterday, on my word, 
I cheered him when he took in tow 
A supercilious crow. 

To-day I saw him bent 

On punitive intent, 

And laughed to think how verily this 

Was Salamis. 

"With like fierce buffetings 
Of swift pugnacious wings 
Was Attic summer azure freed 
From the ill-omened Mede. 



[108] 



A THRENODY 



A Threnody 

Thou dead, whose throat with ecstasy 

Was wont to overflow so ; 
And hushed thy wondrous melody, 

Thou sylvan virtuoso? 

Our eyes are fed with purple light, 

When Day her end is nearing ; 
Who'll feed, since thou hast taken flight. 

Our hungry sense of hearing? 

Thou wast, when in thy lustihood. 

Of all but song a scorner: 
Has not the Abbey of the wood 

Somewhere a Poets' Corner? 

And yet why bury in the ground 
Wings that have lost their fleetness? 

Some leaves will do. . . . So, there's a mound! 
Sleep, child of light and sweetness! 



[109] 



OUTBOUND 



A Mountain Sunrise 

Upward the gradual trail that serpentines 
A mountain-side we climbed, ere yet the dawn 
That silvery fore-radiance had withdrawn 
Of the sun's white upcoming. As when shines 
A singer's face with song his heart divines, 
Yet knowing not but it may fail him, low 
His lips make moan . . . beneath that natal glow 
Sighing half audibly, uprose the pines. 
Higher and higher aloft the spiral trail, 
Where light became effulgence ; far beneath. 
The legioned hush and sylvan majesty ! 
Another splintered crag like dragon's teeth. 
And lo, upon the summit, giving hail 
Unto the vast of skyey outlook, we ! 



[110] 



PRESENCE 



Presence 

Gazing without 

I see the migrant flakes, 

Swirling multitudinous out of the skies ; 

Social snowflakes, winter-tide's butterflies, 

Winter's locusts putting the sun to rout, 

Whose seething advent unmakes and makes, 

Whose flashing coming is smiting and healing in 

one. 
Ending of all things old, all new things begun ; 
Cancelling rutted highways, landmarks of fields, 
Stubbles of bygone yields. 
Plains portioned out into states. 
As loaves from the kneaded dough, — 
Unraveling the many, weaving the One below ; 
Out of what nowhere source. 
Speeding what nowhither course, 
multi-myriad shuttle whose to-and-fro creates 
Yonder the whelming shroud of yesterdays. 
Yonder to prescient gaze 
Swaddling clothes for a man-child birth, — 
To-morrow, scion whose realm be the After- 
earth! . . . 

[Ill] 



OUTBOUND 

Ah, here is dream, 

Vision and glory, worthy singer 's emprise ! 

I, falconing space for a theme, 

Find quarry congesting the skies, — 

Find myself the pursued, put to rout 

By kingbird dartings of meaning athwart and 

about. . . . 
Sense me seemed the rear entrance to soul : 
The gala front-way portals, carven and wrought 
Richly, I deemed were Feeling and Thought; 
But here God entereth in by the humbler door, 
Making matter Presence as never before; 
Yet even for entering so. 
Plunging on either side His chariot pole. 
Dappled splendors hale hither their Lord, 
As if for Last- Judgment award; 
And yet . . . and yet . . . who doth know 
But yon an utterleast flakelet of snow 
Is Presence-chamber now, 
"Where, before white-throned Spirit, spirit may 

bow! 

Here seemeth whirlwind His choice: 
Crashing mid-prairie, tempest hath broke, 
Making the smitten plains to smoke; 
Ruining down its thoroughfare, space, 

[112] 



PRESENCE 

Blanching all with Omnipresence of Face. . . . 

Anon for such coming in power, 

The still small Voice ! 

Emerged at the door of this fleshly cave, 

I will stand, His prophet, that Hour, 

Mantling my sight, yet beholding that save 

For Him there is godhead none, — 

Save for Him, the One, 

No worship in lands abroad. 

With the Vision alone, 

Obeisant unto Its passing, I shall have known 

Horeb, the mount of God. 



[113] 



OUTBOUND 



•'I Am" 

Convince the greening earth no spring-tides be ; 

The sun, no dawn ; the stars of night abroad, 
No skyey azure ; soul, no deity : 

The only evidence of God is God. 



[114] 



PENELOPE 



Penelope 

Once when a sigh 

Escaped my lips in time of spirit ebb, 

And leaden dearth of sky, 

And valley of snowy plains beneath mine eye ; 

When day's incipient thaw. 

Nightly precipitation so undid, 

More utterly than ever earth was hid ; 

Suddenly then I saw 

This weaving and unravelling of snow 

Like hers — the queen of suitor-foiling web, 

Chaste for her homing lord thereby, 

And chaste for all the after-ages so. 

Here, too, lo, an Awaited One, 

Earth's lordly spouse, the Sun! 

To slay with arrows keen of warmth and light 

Fogs, crow^ding in and lusting for embrace, 

Fain to unscepter him of state and place. — 

I repented me that I erewhile did plain, 

I repented me of seeing not aright. 

Penelope . . . the Prairie without stain ! 



[115] 



OUTBOUND 



Night 

Night, the apotheosis of Day! 
Whene'er the mind grows poor and self-content, 

1 need but gaze upon thy firmament, 

And boundless cosmic thoughts once more hold 

sway; 
I need but view thy star-paved Milky Way, 
To tremble with new promptings to ascent; 
And watch thy moon on heights of azure bent. 
To feel the tidal soul suffuse the clay. 
Full-flooding noons, the eagle's gaze hath met. 
Long afterglows o'er endlessness of sea. 
And mountains with their lone white peiaks 

untrod, — 
These would have been, thou being not : and yet 
What Beauty at the full ? and, save for thee, 
What Hymen of the pure in heart with God ? . . . 



[116] 



IN THE COOL OF THE DAY^ 



"In the Cool of the Day*' 

In the cool of the day He walked the garden, 
And the little flowers met His eyes in the way : 

No sin was yet in the world to pardon, 
Nor sunset mixed with regret of the day. 

The afterglow took unwonted splendor, 

Of smoldering flame was the mountains ' attire ; 

Encircling trees loomed golden to render 
Their heavenly Visitant tribute of fire. 

Out of the forest's translucent porches 
Came He at length, of His revery fain : 

And Night, enkindling her myriad torches. 
Lighted Him back to His heavens again. . . . 

We would furlough Toil with a little slumber, 
Yet sudden dreams make a sword of the night ; 

Nor needs must be the awakening to number 
Again in the ranks of who struggle and fight. 

But Twilight meek that the earth doth inherit, — 
tender with what all-tenderness, she! 

[117] 



OUTBOUND 

Her gift — no Nessus-robe to who wear it ; 
Her quietude like a tide of the sea, 

The channels reflooding that soon would 
harden, — 

Spirit again overmastering clay ! 
In the cool of the day He walked the garden : 

Ours be His peace in the selfsame way! 



[118] 



THE HILLS 



The Hills 

The hills, the hills, in that sweet South 

Of our blended summer days ! 

Bridal at morn with softest mist, 

At evening kissed 

Farewell beneath a veil of sunset haze, 

Saffron and amethyst ! 

The hills, the hills, in that sweet South 
Of our blended summer days ! 
Shimmer of ocean at their feet, 
Making retreat 

Into blue distances, whereon to gaze 
Was spirit's drink and meat! 

The hills, the hills, in that sweet South — 

But enough of fond regret! 

Prairie again since fate so wills! 

My life fulfills 

Itself not without joy, here too, — and yet, 

The hills ! our summer hills ! . . . 



[119] 



OUTBOUND 



Essence 

If out of these lapsed days I could recall 
Beauty, and by distilling make them be 
Like perfumes rare to pour out fragrantly, 
And scent a scentless season to befall. 
Surely it were poor thrift not to put all 
Else by, and let them work their will of me: 
Who knows but in them may be potency 
Such as was David 's harp to lowering Saul ! 

So letting a sweet pageantry of sights 
And scenes come back in quietude of dream, 
I sit here of an evening. Like a stream 
Known to the far beholder on the heights 
By aureole of mist, whereon the lights, 
Moonglade and starglade, intermelting gleam. 
So aureoled in memory doth seem 
A summer's flow afar of days and nights. 

And what if not that one was at my side. 

Gentle co-sharer and co-worshiper, 

Makes rich in retrospect the hours that were! 

[120] 



ESSENCE 

Whether a mountain goal with strenuous stride 
We sought, or stood before entranced tide, 
Receiving sunset benizon, for her 
How the loveliness I felt grew lovelier ! 
How sure in dew-like influence to abide ! 

Oh, what a tow-path were the universe 
For haling the brute bulk of things, unless 
Betimes there came surcease of strain and stress, 
And living by bread only ! We might curse 
Job-like our birth-hour, knowing ourselves worse 
Than ruminating beast, if Quietness 
Us pastured never,~the sweet shepherdess, 
Tenderer than our tenderest dreams rehearse! 

'Tis out of the self dofft with doubt and cares 

That spring the very joys for which we pine : 

idle bookless hours wherein no sign 

Of gain — what rich ingathering was theirs! 

Then sowing not nor reaping we were heirs 

To kingdoms, all the affluence divine 

Poured spendthrift with the morning's rain or 

shine, 
Where toiling might have netted us but tares. 

Strange law of spirit husbandry, attested 
By days whereto I backward yearn this hour I 

[121] 



OUTBOUND 

Their largess — came it not as to a flower 
Perfume and color, not desired or quested, 
Or from begrudging hand of giver wrested, 
But lavished freely like the April shower, 
Or like the little bird's melodious dower, 
That singing soars aloft from where it nested? 

In glad release where sea and mountain wrought 

Sorceries on a prairie-sated mind, 

I lingered, fain of clime where Nature kind 

Doth make of summer the perpetual lot 

Of dwellers there, her hand withholding naught. 

What tenderness I had not dreamed to find 

Alike in morning sun and sun declined ! 

Smiles as for child in mother-arms upcaught ! 

Goaded by sting and frenzy of the frore 
Blasts out of northern sky, I oft have said: 
"What matter, so to Beauty I be wed 
Within !" . . . and sought me shelter behind door. 
And yet doth it not matter if before 
The outward eye no loveliness be shed 
Abroad? From whence the spirit's daily bread, 
If not out of the sense-world 's yielded store ? 

Forgive, great Prairies, the so puling strain ! 
Not niggard is the bounty that your hands 

[122] 



ESSENCE 

Dispense unto the heart that understands. 

For thirst there hath been beaker here to drain ; 

For hunger, meat. Then wherefore Song's dis- 
dain? 

Because, forsooth, I walked on alien strands, 

Or climbed unnative hills? . . . Forgive, great 
Lands ! 

Forgive my ''Colin Clout's come home again!" 

— Our country, rife with oil and wine and corn. 

Her milk and honey everywhere aflow, 

Hath not a peer in beauty, too, I know. 

Who sees Yosemite invading morn 

With trees whose Samson locks were never shorn, 

Or Shasta with his hieroglyphs of snow. 

But needs must wonder, in that hour of glow. 

Why yet hath not the Singer of these been born ? 

For why should forests wrestle with the gales, 
Or why the wonder of a prairie's lone 
Communion with the sunset, and the blown 
Rose of the morning o'er expectant vales; 
Why else our seas' white foliage of sails, 
Niagara and twice-plunging Yellowstone, 
Unless that Song should come into her own. 
Failing of which, of Destiny she fails? 

[123] 



OUTBOUND 

What though the Mississippi Gulfward speed, 
Creating sea-usurping deltas, whence 
New empire states will rise in ages hence? 
Forgot will be our every thought and deed 
Not Song-rehearsed. Thus is it fate-decreed: 
In Song alone a land hath permanence. 
Abiding Hellas draws her glory thence. 
But where to-day Phoenicia's wealth and greed! 

The cloud of hand-like breadth before great rain, 

Who gazing forth from Carmel now espies? 

Lo, spirit tropics 'neath exhausted skies, 

Where only the spiked cactuses remain, 

And heart hath gone to seed in cunning brain ! 

for an Age less knowing and more wise ! 

for a Seer as of old to rise, 

And shepherd us with Vision once again! 

Man's body soars to-day like nimble swallow,- — 
Curbed, are the mettled air-foals ; land and sea 
Are rutted with his thunderous chariotry: 
Soars, too, his Spirit ... or doth only wallow ? 
It cannot be : Spirit must lead, not follow. 
Else queenless swarm our triumphs ; else are we 
Mazeppas of our own speed-enginery, — 
Ay, of the planet plunging through heaven's 
hollow ! 

[124] 



ESSENCE 

— So questioned we perplexed of time and fate, 
Betimes in summer days, where bush or tree 
Shredded the noonday sunlight; yet the glee 
And zest of things more oft postponed their 

weight 
And mystery to other place and date. 
Waves capped themselves with merriment of the 

sea : 
Admitted to their jocund company, 
How could our hearts be other than elate ! 

Be still elate, the wintry months ahead, 
And glad with the same gladness, heart, con- 
tinue! 
Albeit unknown, the web of fate they spin you. 
Yourself may weave the Adriadne-thread 
Whereby your groping lightward will be led 
Through labyrinth that baffleth wit and sinew. 
Be still elate: heaven's kingdom is within you. 
Whatever darkling maze the feet may tread! 

If stream-begotten canyons have been sawed 
Out of the basic adamant of things. 
Where water toiling in the depth yet sings, 
Why should not we whose souls have been abroad 
'Mid scenes where beauty charmed and wonder 
awed, 

[125] 



OUTBOUND 

Ply whatsoever task the morrow brings 

With singing ? Earth is fair, the sun upsprings 

As yesterday — the same heavens ! the same God ! 

Ay, singing though with transitory breath, 
A transitory season ! 'Twixt the child, 
And Age, the child again, not many-miled 
The stream of human life meandereth. 
Thus serious mid-manhood's vision saith. 
Yet, flowing, if betimes it shall have smiled 
Green meads among, nor wound its course un- 

isled, 
Sweetly repose admonishing, comes Death. 

A little sheaf of Ruth-gleaned hours may sow 
What tracts of Time for harvest ! Camelot 
Itself upbuilded out of the forgot. 
Our yesterdays become the Long- Ago 
By passing of the years, and then bestow 
Their precious balm on memory, being not — 
As grasses by the subtle sickle cut 
Become all after-odorous for the throe. . . . 



[126] 



^WHEN THE WAVES SLIP BACK" 



*'When the Waves Slip Back*' 

(On espying a fish left behind by the tide) 

This stark and noisome thing with eyes astare, 

Left dry on the rock, — 

Clove it indeed with arrowy swimming 

The main a half hour since ? 

Was all yon vast of liquid sea 

'Twixt Polar solitudes and Carib summer 

Thine, — but a half hour since ? 

And then of a sudden — thine no more, 

When the waves slip back! 

And me whom Birth endenizened in Time, 
Shall the like befall? 
Cleave I not, too, with arrowy swimming 
A main, mastering it all? 
A vast of liquid sea 

'Twixt bournes whereof to thought is no con- 
ceiving. 
Mine — till what tidal hour? 
And then of a sudden — mine no more. 
When the waves slip back! 

[127] 



OUTBOUND 



Song of Unrest 



Oft in hours of sleeplessness, 

Sad of soul, 

In a shadowy recess 

Of the wood I stroll. 

Sighs the forest: ''In the glooming, 

When the trees are skyward looming, 

Comes a cloud the stars entombing. 

And I mourn in sleeplessness." 

Oft in hours of sleeplessness. 

Sad of soul. 

In a dewy-eyed recess 

Of the dell I stroll. 

Sobs the lowland: ''There's a yearning 

In the humblest bosom burning: 

Vales to mountains are upturning 

Wistful eyes of sleeplessness." 

Oft in hours of sleeplessness, 

Sad of soul, 

In a moonlight-blanched recess 

[128] 



SONG OF UNREST 

Of the lea I stroll. 

Moans the night- wind: '* Earth is dreary, 

Life mysterious and uncheery, 

And the human heart aweary 

"With unrest and sleeplessness." 

Oft in hours of sleeplessness, 

Sad of soul, 

In a foam-befringed recess 

Of the beach I stroll. 

Sings a wavelet: "Death's a pillow. 

Giving sleep to man and billow. 

And 'neath yew or weeping willow 

None need suffer sleeplessness." 



[129] 



OUTBOUND 



* 'Times Be When Life Seems Aimless 
and Uncouth** 

Times be when Life seems aimless and uncouth, 
Like a whelp 's day-long loping to and fro ; 
When little that the boastful world can show 
Seems worthy reverence, scarce worthy ruth. 
Its empire at the beck of birth-crowned youth; 
Authority, the lord of them that know ; 
Still wrung from G-alileo : ' ' Ay, even so ! " 
Nor now his whisper, reenthroning Truth. 
And many a Baiae, lying sea-empearled. 
All garlanded with loveliness appears; 
Yet there who enters in Penelope 
Comes forth — Helen. Knowing that such things 

be. 
Long since I had forwearied of the world. 
But for my Loved One's widowed after-years. 



[130] 



MOODS 



Moods > 

Moods, moods, 

Ye are like broods, 

Tempest would smite on, 

Sparrow-hawks light on, — 

Therefore ye lie 'neath the covert of wings, 

Sensitive things! 

Moods, moods, 

Ye are like feuds, 

Truce hath brought hush to, 

Consciousness, blush to, — 

Therefore ye vanish away into air. 

Tarrying ne'er! 

Moods, moods. 

Brief interludes, 

Sun during bleak days. 

Sabbath dream, week-days, — 

Therefore ye dower life with something sublime, 

Outlasting time I 



[131] 



OUTBOUND 



Surf 

Out of the sea's continuous white offensive 
A record-making breaker up the sand-bar . . . 
And so I fall to pondering human lives. 

Seething offensives and retreats^ — the sea! 
One's backward clashing with another's forward, 
One's white momentum upward, tackled, hurled 
Aback — and so no record on the sand. 

One rising, white-toothed, blue-lipped, out at sea. 
And thunderous churning shoreward with a wake 

of madness, 
Touching the strand just as all waves are spent, 
All oppositionless in swirl of onset, 
With an avalanche of waters, flooding, flooding. 
Making a record up the sands unequalled, 
And lapping in dry stranded strings of kelp. 

Another rising, caught in its fierce ebbing, — 
Crushed by the hissing python in recoil; 
Sepulchred in the sea without achievement. 
Cancelled and void because another scored. 

[132] 



SURF 

Out of the sea's continuous white offensive, 
The endless generations of the surf . . . 
And I, in revery, pondering human lives ! 



[133] 



OUTBOUND 



Cause and Effect 

Between trains there was time to stroll a bit : 
I walked the main street with displays in shops, 
Lazily in the mood of one who drops 
Worry, and let things harry him no whit, 
Or men. Then jarred on sight — words scarce 

befit- 
Athwart me someone reeling, with a top's 
Wobbling uncertainty just ere it stops. 
* ' Better go back, ' ' I said, — ' ' watch women knit. ' ' 
But — hours of waiting. Freight-train gone 

askew. — 
The town was that in which the State doth house 
Her weak-brained — whom I visited anon, 
Ward after crowded ward ... a piteous crew ! 
In one of them was he of the morn's carouse. 
Calling to see — what should have been his 

Bon. . . . 



[134] 



EN ROUTE 



En Route 

It's risking loss, no matter where one scants 
Attention. — Passing by a station's freight 
Promiscuously piled, I spied a crate, 
Doubly compartmented for occupants : 
A fuzzy little roll of lap-dog fat, 
Whimpering, whining, yelping — eyes aswim ; 
A square-jawed bulldog, just a little grim 
More than his wont, no doubt, but — standing pat. 
Like a barbed seedling caught, the picture clings. 
Which Aesop might have captured for his scrolls, 
And made a pricking lesson of — afresh 
Indulging his old bent for fabling things — 
On how to meet discomfiture, our souls 
Awaiting shipment in their crates of flesh. 



[135] 



OUTBOUND 



Kelp 

Interlaced flora, maze and tangle of growth ! 

The same I saw last night and yester-year, 

The same God saw in yester-aeon: 

Wonderful to us both ! . . . 

Whether in North afar its peace or here, 

Or fusing dream with waters Caribbean, 

To keep identity of selfhood so. 

To thrive on menace, unperturbed to grow 

Despite the impact of the tidal seas. 

Merits a little heed in days like these. 

Assaulted constantly by burly breakers, 

Yet ne'er repaying blow for blow; 

Peacefuller than Quakers, 

Albeit Ocean bugles in its ear 

To legionary onset and a host 

Makes thunderous bombardment of the coast; 

Ne'er giving way to fear, 

Keeping in strength and spirit equipoise. 

Despite confusion, turmoil, noise; 

Surf-buffeted, storm-howled-at, ocean-hissed, 

Yet still — pacificist; 

[136] 



KELP 

Gigantic, yet with Sabbath mood alway, 

June or December, night and dayj 

Verily here I find 

In stringy kelp of homely brown 

What I have searched the world for up and 

down, 
Nor hoped might ever be. 
Whether in world of matter or of mind ! 
Of such as Kelp the Kingdom verily! . . . 

Changeless, and yet — all changed! 

For where is aught the same in world so wracked 

And anguished as to-day's? 

Almost I walk estranged 

With sea, with morn, impotent to react 

To the bloom, the glow, wherewith they meet 

my gaze. — 
I said: ''Poor thrift, this sleeplessness abed! 
I'll up and hie me where the Sea halloos 
His tides. I'll up and share the morning red 
With ocean kelp. Mayhap a blend of hues 
Rarer and richer now is on the ooze 
Than I have thrilled to yet, 
Trj^sting with sea at rise of sun or set." . . , 
Surmise was not amiss: 
Ne'er bed of kelp more multihued than this! 

[137] 



OUTBOUND 

A spirit of beauty is abroad this hour 

In rarity like a flower. 

What infinite repertory Nature hath 

Of joy: winged sun from ocean's chrysalis, 

And cataract of stars out of her gloom ! 

But man perverting her to ill, 

Making her serve his wrath, 

Making her sting, and stab, and kill — 

Therein and thence is doom. 

And can it be 

Yon amplitudes of kelp are being made 

Means of the world 's war-madness, too, and aid ? 

That yonder girdle of the sea, 

Oozy ocean cincture of continents, 

Held a hidden sword, a shining blade, 

Whereby the world's Berserker wrath augments 

Slaughter, this time of fate? 

Flown o'er by pelicans with oaring wings, 

Neighbor to ocean lands throughout which sings 

The meadow-lark all seasons of the year, 

Winter's no less than spring's, 

How all aloof this scene from hate ! 

How unconcerned with aught of fear ! 

Of the all-engulfing war, 

With nation slitting nation's jugular, 

[138] 



KELP 

And Teuton plunge for planet empery, 

What recked the kelp-tranced sea? 

Yet lo, in the distance, barges, 

Harvesting night and day with triple shift 

Of toil the kelp from whence my soul's uplift, 

Rapture and spirit largess! 

For Science, keen-eyed, hath espied 

Swathed high explosives in yon langorousness, 

Useless, forsooth, till now in wind and tide. 

Such the tentacles war hath, 

Such the suction of its wrath. 

All-commandeering war, without redress, 

All-spoliating for its own increase, 

Even this morning dream and vesper peace 

Is wrought into its Clytemnestra net. 

And flung around mankind for butchery ! 

Great God, how long shall yet 

Such nations ' Ate be ! . . . 

the Nemesis in things. 

That thus out of discovery only springs 

More poison-fanged a world and keen of claw 

To lacerate and rend! 

While steadfast Science labors to the end, 

Translating matter into terms of Law, 

Of bringing things beneath the sway of man, 

Man 'neath the sway of things bemeans himself 

[139] 



OUTBOUND 

As never hitherto since time began. 

Anathema ! ' ' Retro me, Satana ! ' ' 

To Science, if indeed her summing up 

Be ill for human kind ! Ay, dash it down. 

If for the race be poison in the cup ! 

At least the days of Ghibelline and Guelph, 

Howso they splashed their blood-feuds o'er the 

town, 
Could not coerce sweet Nature to their ends 
Of vengeance and affright; 
At least when Greek fought fellow Greek, their 

might 
Of mutual destruction found not help 
And furtherance in clinging beds of kelp. 
Awakened out of oozy sleep in bends 
And windings of the Grecian shore. 
Ah, never, never more. 
These waters should be named Pacific ! 
Surely all forfeit is the name they bore. 
Being put to use so martial, so terrific. 

Here in high Dream's employ, 

And tense Hebraic mood, 

Purged of all individual alloy. 

These leagues of mighty ocean I surveyed 

As symbol of like vast pan-racial good. 

[140] 



KELP 

Then suddenly the soul in me 

Rose geyser-like in wild apostrophe : 

America, my Country, art thou weighed 

In the balance and found wanting ? thou Land 

Of promise unfulfilled, and high desires 

Blasted like waves upon an iron strand! 

With thy dread failure thou dost make afraid 

Who trusted thee, hoped for thee, and lit fires 

For beacons on thy mountains. Thou dost reel 

With wine, art fat with feasting, and thy lips 

Are the abode of wantonness and mirth; 

Thou peoplest the great deep with ships. 

And on the uttermost earth 

As conqueror hast trod and set thy heel. 

Yet thou hast made of weal 

A fetish god, and worshipest thy gold 

As calf-delirious Israel of old. 

It was not for the dancing of such rite 

Thy feet have forded seas 

With pillar of cloud by day and fire by night; 

Nor passed they through those dire calamities 

Of other nearer days, whereof the woe 

Still lives, to stumble now and go amiss. 

lifted up by that vast earthquake throe 

To be the world's enskyed Acropolis, 

Thinkest thou to be hid ? . . . 



OUTBOUND 

Forgive my lips, forgive me that I chid, 

White Wonder of indomitable will! 

But I would see thee as I once did see. 

With prairies, mountains, wave-anointed strands, 

The Virgin-born of Lands, 

Fulfilment of thy singers' prophecy. 

And of all nations the Messiah still! . . . 

The sea itself upheaves 

To pace the world with tides, and scattered 
leaves 

Its kelp to etch the pathway of its march. 

The roar summons me back from otherwhere — 

The human welter of energy, 

With brinier kelp from waters more resistless. 

Almost I would the vastness seething there. 

The waves with feet that prance, with necks that 
arch. 

All the super-beauty of the sea, 

Might drug me to forget, with heart grown list- 
less. 

The pitifulness and pathos of man's life. 

The pitifulness and tragedy of his strife. . . . 

Just when democracy was nascent; just 

When man was climbing upward out of dust 

With something of momentum, and a new 

[142] 



KELP 

Sense of achievement thrilled him through and 

through ; 
Just when he thought to lay more bastions low 
Of privilege and error, and make way 
With ancient exploitations, and to grow 
Into the stature of himself indeed — 
Then this' Nay 

To his dreams, to his hopes, to God! 
Then Belgium trodden into the sod — 
Ploughed under by the Teuton human plough, 
Before which freedom is a noxious weed, 
That, flowering, menaces with thorn and spike; 
Then in that racial crisis, we 
Battening on blood-lucre, Judas-like; 
Nor even protesting, save for our own rights — 
Studious of our own ease and how 
To prosper, whereso victory or defeat ! 
But wherefore, wherefore repeat 
Here within ear-shot of the moaning sea 
The story of man 's plunge adown the heights ! 
I'll discipline myself to be resigned. 
Withdrawal still is possible and sweet, 
Withdrawal still is home — 
Pillow and cup and bread to soul and mind, 
Wearied and sick of things as they of yore. 

[143] 



OUTBOUND 

Civilization is a little foam, 

Eiding a little kelp, anJ cast ashore, 

And cancelled by a little noon forevermore. 

1916- 

** See note. 



144] 



THE MELTING POT 



The Melting Pot 

The town was there in force to give the boys 
Fit send-off: coaches, filled and filling, some 
Twenty and more, that heads protruded from; 
And music, waving banners, cheering, noise. 
Forgot that day were private griefs and joys : 
'Twas soldier torn from sweetheart, parent, 

chum; 
'Twas One-out-of-the-many flesh become. 
Thus War fulfills, and not alone destroys. — 
The parting neared. It somewhat hushed the 

throng. 
One picture, given heed that moment, stays: 
Twain, face to face — aged father, stalwart son. 
"Take God along to France" in Norseman's 

tongue, 
I caught — and watched their mutual farewell 

gaze, 
Intent and lingering. . . . The train was gone. 



[145] 



OUTBOUND 



Democracy 
I 

At gaze I stand — backward the endless miles: 
Mediterranean splintered capes and isles 
Aryanized at length, 

Lo, Man beginning to put forth his strength 
On land, and flaking with first sails the sea ! 
Lo, up and down great battle-fields, commanders, 
Sowing their mandates among soldiery, — 
The legions whence great Caesar harvested 
Empires ; the cohorts which were Alexander 'b, 
Crisscrossing Asia with unwearied tread ! 
Then loosed upon the South the whelming 

hordes, — 
Out of the Gothic wilds wave upon wave 
In white and terrible surf uphurled 
Against a dykeless world ! 
And fallow centuries lingered through with 

patience, 
Until the welter Zionward of nations. 
With onset of resistless swords, — 
Occident against Orient — for a Grave ! 

[146] 



DEMOCRACY 

Then — the Great Quickening! 

Man's mind, an Aetna, active once again! 

Twin Americas plucked out of the seas 

By the dreaming Genoese! 

Like the multi-myriad progeny of Spring, 

New universes out of spatial vastnesses, — 

The olden universe withdrawn: 

And curtain of the Temple rent in twain 

For the instreaming Dawn ! 

Anon, Science, big-limbed, unkempt, — 

The serpent-strangling Babe sublime ! 

Anon, the Dream the prescient ages dreamt, 

Being bodied forth at last, — 

Democracy ! . . . out of the frustrate Past, 

Out of its unachievement and attempt. 

In the fulness born of Time ! . . . 

II 

Wherefore to sing hath none essayed 
The Wonder and the Terror that is she — 
Climactic-born Democracy ? 
Is it that being afraid 
Makes dumb the bardling tribe. 
Or is their silence mockery and a gibe? — 
What whisper heard I breathed from some- 
where : ' ' Hers, 

[147] 



OUTBOUND 

The blame of irremediable curse ! 
Through her, lo, million-funneled Industry, 
That smoke-bedims the skies 
With reek of Erebus, belched forth amain. 
And fouls with offal river, hill, and plain ! 
'Tis she hath tutored Man to mammonize — 
His brain to scheme, but not his heart to feel; 
She webbed the globe with steel; 
Made clang and grinding, hiss and shriek, 
For cleanly hamlet, city stench and reek. 
The factory, for toil in fields abloom 
And woman singing at the loom. . . . 
Distinction, artistry — of what account? 
Bulk's paramount! 

An Age of Everything-en-masse begun! 
All things, all men — chaotically one ! 
Beauty is dead. Soul at an end: 
Let us strew ashes on our heads, our garments 
rend!" . . . 

Ill 

Dolts! were it good, then, to bring peace on 

earth ? 
Nay, still the sword ! 
Of toiling were it good to make surcease ? 
Nay, verily the increase, 

[148] 



DEMOCRACY 

With sweat and knotted cord, 

Like travail waxing until stanched by birth ! 

With wrath be they gazed back upon, 

Sabbatic, dawdling centuries agone, — 

The planet trundled day and night through 
space, 

And yet so little done 

To build a marriage bower and spirit dwelling- 
place ! 

Now that the builder's labor doth begin 

Mid the timbers lying prone, 

And not yet the corner stone, 

Plain we that still no door is garlanded 

For the bridal entering in? 

Are we vexed and sore bested 

That digged foundation raiseth dust o'erhead? 

That mauling of the cedar maketh din? 

For the slag and excrement 

Wherewith each new-oped shaft must needs be 
foul, 

Were't better that the Mount had not been rent 

And pierced even to the wealth it doth em- 
bowel — 

The iron, the marble, the gold. 

Whereof Jehovah's house — 

[149] 



OUTBOUND 

But kept intact for pasture as of old, 
And yielding goats a little shrubby browse? 

IV 

A half-score yester decades back, 

What was the world? . . . To-day, what is it 

not? . . . 
To-day, smoking with thaw, and harrowed black 
For sowers, — tilth wherever the globe's curve is. 
Uncouth yet vernal, vastly taking shape ; 
Where yesterday — perchance, a garden plot. 
Sporadic culture of the grape. 
Showing but lag, eleventh-hour, vineyard service. 
And whence the Change, heartening so the blood 
Of rapt historic onlooker abroad ? 
Whence everywhere Herculean emprise 
On land and sea, in skies ? 
Out of Democracy sprang not and grew 
This world-wide derring-do? . . . 
Why else the great material challenge flung. 
Whereat the new-age chivalry upsprung? 
East, West, and South, and North, 
How battailous have been its goings-forth, 
And hardihood in fight ! 
Nor only wildernesses made to yield, 
Or trade enhanced in mart and crops afield, 

[150] 



DEMOCRACY 

But Woman roused and strenuous in zeal 
For selfhood's due, the Child's law-fended 

weal, — 
Attest not these Democracy aright? 
What Power but this hath sceptered knouted 

Man- 
Worm in the dust, heel-trod, since Time began, — 
Ay, makes even thrall in the dust 
Lord of himself by influence august ! . . . 
Him— ridden one made Rider, hath she taught 
With dauntlessness of will to rein and curb; 
She lessoned him in chariotr}^ superb 
Until hiuLself he shies at naught ; 
And therefore hath it come to be, 
Amongst the Forces 'neath his mastery, 
One swift, a swifter yet doth supersede. 
Foaled of the tameless w^elkin for his steed; 
Which, too, while aeons gather and disperse. 
To others must needs yield, till Man, perchance. 
Become choregus of the stars in dance. 
For a little change of glee, 
Will vault upon the saddled universe, 
And ride the pampas of eternity. 
Who knoweth whereof potent he? 
Whereof fain his spirit feels? 
The centuries are pools splashed by his chariot 

wheels. . . . 

[151] 



OUTBOUND 

V 

Like looming mountain height, 

Uprist to peer beyond horizon bourne 

For the coming forth of Morn, 

So the consciousness of Man this hour is white 

With summit splendor. Now he knows elate 

Himself the victor duelist with Fate, 

Job of the terrene ash-heap though he seemed. 

It suddenly befell he wist 

Himself protagonist, 

This cosmic Dreamer who on earth hath dreamed. 

Blind player led unto the organ keys, 

Or groping for harp strings, 

And yet by Spirit wielding over Things 

Omnific potencies ! 

And hence his Faith therefrom. 

Though yet appear not what he shall become. 

That nothing — neither Matter's empery. 

Nor sovereignties and kingdoms of the world. 

Nor Time, nor Change, nor Death, nor Destiny, 

Nor the universe itself against him hurled. 

Can separate 

And plunge him from his soulhood's high estate. 

Even Europe's writhings veto not his creed, 

In the wake of War — like Juggernaut 's of Ind, 

Nor the million-throated Need 

[152] 



DEMOCRACY 

Now rife on earth like wailings of the wind. 
He knows the racial pain must come to naught — 
Be utterly at end, 

When a little more he shall have wrought 
After his heart's desire with zest impassioned. 
For he hath schooled himself to comprehend 
Achievement, nor shall pause till he can say, 
At gaze upon the world beneath his sway: 
^'Lo, the Kingdom as in Heaven, my hands have 

fashioned ! " . . . 
November 1918. 



ri53] 



OUTBOUND 



Advent 

Unto every age, unto every clime, 

Sooner or later comes the sublime 

Messiah yearning: anear, afar, 

Heralding Birth in manger, the Star! 

Under the spell of that crescent hope, 

Tidal world-spirit leaps toward the cope ; 

And Man, appearing dormant, inert, 

Like mountain with cincture of vineyards begirt, 

Is all volcanic at soul. 

Albeit darkling, he gropes toward Goal, 

And knows every moment with meaning fraught ; 

Browsing and sleeping give way to thought; 

Mute-born lips are unsealed : 

"To Whom is the hand of the Lord revealed?" 

December 1918. 



[154] 



GESTANT 



Gestant 

Nine moons, and lo, the infant life unwombed ! 

Centuries of gestation, and lo, still 

Earth gestant with her unborn Good or 111 ! 

Yet whatso advent ages thus consumed, 

The New out of the Old shall come, 

Nor with outward observation, but uprist 

With a footfall spirit-whist, — 

The eponym of worlds to spring therefrom. 

The New out of the Old . . . and not one jot 

Or tittle of existence come to naught. 

Ere the mornward eyes of Greece, 

The timeless night of Egypt's dynasties; 

Ere Dante's dome of Thought, 

The feudal making brick with toil-won straw. 

To-day in dead millennia hath root : 

Thence do our sapling years the marrow draw 

From whence their flower and fruit. 

Yet Calvary, Parnassus, are not Goal, 

But mile-stones in the onward march of soul. 

To-morn the social order of to-day 

Into the oven may be cast straightway. 

January 1919. 

[155] 



OUTBOUND 



In Campo dei Fiori 

''Awakener of sleeping minds," the role 
Given him to act in human things he styled — 
Giordano Bruno of impetuous soul. 
Volcanic as his natal soil, and wild 
As the unearthly beauty there enisled, 
He was ordained such mission as by Fate ; 
Yet mingled therewith something of the child, 
Even as Shelley, his true spirit mate, — 
Which childlike faith but made him the more 
great. 

He was of those who hail the world's rebirth 
As spring is hailed afar by prescient lark ; 
Who dance before rejuvenated earth 
As royal David danced before the ark, 
Restored to Zion, — all too glad to mark 
A window opened and his queen looked scorn: 
Nor heeded he what power above him dark 
Was lowering, but with eyes intent on morn 
Thrilled with the gladness of the world reborn. 

[156] 



IN CAMPO DEI FIORI 

An exile and a wanderer, he, with menace 
Of doom above him like a sun befogged 
Into a lurid red: at last 'twas Venice, 
No longer island queen, but harlot bogged 
With treachery, his winged feet enmeshed and 

clogged. 
As hawk eyes quarry, hankering to give chase, 
Rome long had eyed him and his footsteps 

dogged : 
Gloating she dungeoned him a seven-year space, 
Then burned him in her jubilee year of grace. 

"I go to carry the Divine in me 

To that Divine beyond ! " . . . Thus breathed his 

lips 
Their parting breath. world too blind to see 
What awful sunburst thou dost deem eclipse ! 
The seeming heresy that sinks its ship's 
Anchor, where thou canst only drift and toss, 
Till Truth's immovable bed-rock its grips; 
And martyr gaze, but the more luminous 
Because in death averted from the cross ! . . . 

Thou Ganymede of thine own eagle thought. 
Which bore thee up to conclave of the gods, — 
Not unto futile deities once wrought 

[ 157 ] 



OUTBOUND 

By ancient fancy: Jove no longer nods, 
Shaking the heavens with dread, nor is the sod's 
Dew-sheen the footprint of a goddess fair; 
Yet lifted above life that toils and plods, 
Through regions of unfathomable air, 
In a divine existence thou hast share. 

In more august assembly dost fulfill 

Some function worthy thy rich spirit dower: 

Great Galileo — Galileo still 

By virtue of the after- whisper's power; 

The elder Bacon, luminous as tower 

That takes with sudden gleam the midnight seas ; 

And cowled Savonarola, too, and our 

Own Milton, ay, and Attic Socrates — 

If cup-bearer thou be, it is to these. 

Promethean spirit, filching liquid fire, 
Not from one solar fountain source alone. 
But on the tameless wings of high desire 
Flitting 'twixt worlds as bee 'twixt flowers full- 
blown, 
To make their inmost flaming soul thine own, 
And so return with inward splendor crowned 
That the world 's darkness might be overthrown — 
Thou here transfixed, with suffering profound, 
Bound but to be f orevermore unbound ! . . . 

[ 158 ] 



THE TRAGIC MUSE 



The Tragic Muse 

Byron's ejaculations when the road 

Grew devious, where his fiery soul he spurred; 

The spirit cry from Shelley that a bird, 

Lone-soaring, in the highest heaven abode; 

The thunder of that tidal wave which flowed 

In upon Dante, so with Vision stirred; 

And Shakespeare's Fourfold Uttermost ... I 

heard, 
Wondering what more hath singer's gift be- 
stowed. 
I asked and lo, still Twain unto the soul — 
Like an eclipse, that overmasters skies. 
And makes all landscape other than it was! 
Those whispers out of Time's great hush of dole : 
King Oedipus with self-extinguished eyes . . . 
Friendless among his friends, the Man of Uz. . . . 



[159] 



OUTBOUND 



April 23 

When Mary Arden crooned to her third-born, 

Making his rude crib rhythmic to her song, 

Or bent her o'er his slumber, gazing long, 

Came not some moment when the veil was torn 

In sunder, and the glory to be worn 

By him in manhood's fulness dazed her sight? 

Streamed not of a sudden in upon her night — 

As in upon another Mary — Morn? 

His natal day once more! ... Ye who would 

praise. 
Make pause before his Mother, head bowed low. 
And having entered in with feet unshod; 
Even in Religion's wise, who dare not raise 
Her voice unto the Highest, lest it grow 
Dumb before awfulness of too much God. 



[ 160 ] 



AND ALL THE OODS WERE GAZING ON THEM 



"And All the Gods Were Gazing 
on Them* 

Thrice around walls, his prowess hath kept 

whole ; 
Thrice before gates barred in the hour of doom : 
Behind, that Terror of lance and helmet plume, 
Wherefrom astrain like racer for the goal, 
His race with Death ! . . . What save his widow's 

dole. 
And her breast 's orphan, thus postpones the tomb 
With plying of swift knees by one than whom 
Never more strange to fear a warrior soul ! 
Him, hot in flight, the phantom brother stays. 
And heartens to the combating, — yet flown. 
The moment of accepted battle gage, 
And weapon hurled, his piteous backward gaze : 
And Hector, spearless, sees himself alone. 
In the dreadful flash-light of Pelides' rage. 



[ 161 ] 



OUTBOUND 



If 



If, nothing by me wrought, nothing attained, 
My face were touched into autumnal snow; 
If this quick heart with ramifying roots 
Of impulse, but uncrowned with flowers of deed, 
Froze; if from night as from a rich black loam 
No Rose of Dawn I've dreamed might come to 

blossom, 
Ere the morn's breezes moaned my threnody — 
Cold, cold would be the emerald covering; hard 
The bed with gravel bolster; evil dreams 
Would give the lie to Death's feigned dream- 

lessness ; 
The dark tomb would enclasp me, envying 
The one still-born, and calling to the hills 
To hide from the great Talent-Giver's eyes. 



[162] 



ILLUSION 



Illusion 

Ah, chide not dream ! . . . The wavelet soon, too 
soon. 
Unlearns to clutch at stars and knows with 
pain: 
The mightiest tide begotten of the moon 

But shakes a few foam-petals from the main. 



[163] 



OUTBOUND 



Winter Mist 

I SAID : ' ' Great artist, wondrous dreamer, Mist ! ' ' 
Watching its witchery of frost o'erhead 
On trees ; the wake, world-blanching, of its tread 
Spirit-like, as if stealing to a tryst 
In moonlight, amid shadows to be kissed ; — 
Adaze at Omnipresent White it shed 
Over all things out of the air, I said : 
' ' Rapt fellow-artist, fellow-dreamer, list : 
I, too, by night in revery have wrought. 
As thou; but troubled am in mood to know 
All singing evanescent, since with dawn 
Evanished ... by englutting Time made naught. 
I learn : Mist, working what enchantment — lo ! 
Letting the aeons have their way, thou'rt 
gone." . . . 



[164] 



Notes 

"And All the Gods Were Gazing on Them"— p. 161. 
See Iliad, Book XXII. 

"At School"— p. 55. For the parable in bare out- 
line I am indebted to Felix Adler. 

"Behold This Dreamer Cometh" — p. 9. Freely 
adapted from the Swedish of Gustaf Froding. 

"Calamus"— p. 77. The title of this poem was bor- 
rowed from Leaves of Grass, where it heads a series 
of poems celebrating comradeship. 

"Condolence"— p. 75. Composed in memory of the 
late Richard Watson Gilder. 

"I Dreamed That Dream Was Quenched"— p. IG. 
First appeared in "The Lyric Year," a century of 
poems by various authors, published by Mitchell Ken- 
nerley, 1917. 

"Judgment"— p. 51. First published in the Century 
Magazine, May, 1911. 

"Kelp" — p. 136. Summering on the Pacific coast 
in 1916, I lived within sight and hearing of barges 
that ceaselessly, night and day, were harvesting kelp. 
By recent discovery Jielp had been made a source of 
potassium salts, used in the manufacture of certain 
explosives. Out of these circumstances came the 
theme of the poem. Its arraignment of America on 
account of our seeming indifference and lethargy at 

[165] 



NOTES 

the time in relation to the European crisis may be of 
historical interest, although fortunately our whole- 
hearted later participation in the war changed the 
situation. The poem first appeared, somewhat ab- 
breviated, in the "Forum" of New York, March, 1917. 

"Mothering"— p. 93. Written for the Twenty Fifth 
Reunion of the Class of '92, University of Minnesota. 

"Progress" — p. 96. Adapted from the prose of 
W. K. Clifford's Lectures and Essays. 



[166] 



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